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administration and command, as well as the subdivision of sub­camps into
subordinate camps, work details, and assembly camps, make it difficult to
establish a complete, precise list of the elements comprising the Mauthausen
system. 1 Place names of sub­camps, out­detail camps, and atrocity sites men­
tioned in this volume include Aafa, Aflens, Ausbau, Brettstein, Dippoldsau,
Ebensee, Eisenerz, Florisdorf, Fraeserhof, Gros­Raming, Gunskirchen, Gusen I,
Gusen II, Gusen III, Haidfeld (Wien­Haidfeld), Hinterbruehl, Hintzen,
Lambach, Leibnitz, Linz I, Linz III, Loiblpass, Melk, Moedling, Oberilzmuehle,
Peggau, Redl­Zipf, Schlier, Schloss Hartheim, Schloss Lind, Schwechat, Stalbau,
Steyr, St. Aegyd, St. Georgen (worksite of Gusen II), St. Lambrecht, St. Valentin,
Voecklabruck,Wayer,Wiener Neudorf, and Wiener Neustadt. Companies impli­
cated in the use of slave labor from Mauthausen and its sub­camps include the
DEST cartel (Deutsche Erd­ und Steinwerke, GmbH) owned by the Schutzstaffel
(SS), the Steyr­Daimler­Puch cartel and the Heinkel and Messerschmitt airplane
producers, to name only a few.
I.3 Mauthausen was administered by the SS in Berlin, under the direct
command of SS Colonel Franz Ziereis. Inmates represented every European
nationality and many social categories, including political prisoners, Jews, peo­
ple of Roma origin, homosexuals, and others. Large groups of anti­Franco
Spanish Republicans, captured by the German Army in France, as well as Soviet
prisoners of war, were transferred to Mauthausen in 1941. In 1944,
Mauthausen received large numbers of Dutch and Hungarian Jews, many of
the latter transferred from Auschwitz. Mauthausen was also the execution site
of 47 Dutch, British, and American downed airmen in September 1944, and in
January 1945, of captured members of the OSS (U.S. Office of Strategic
Services) Dawes Mission. The U.S. Army’s 41st Cavalry Reconnaissance
Squadron, 11th Armored Division, reached Mauthausen and Gusen on May
5, 1945, making these had been closed or evacuated between late March and
mid­April 1945. The remaining camps were liberated on May 6.
1 The most recent compilation (2006) of 43 sub­camps is provided by Bertrand Perz and Florian
Freund in the fourth volume of Der Ort des Terrors, Die Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen
Konzentrationslager (Munich, 2006), edited by Wolfang Benz and Barbara Distel.
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