Information about Mittelbau Dora

Mittelbau-Dora, sometimes known as Mittelbau or Nordhausen, was a Nazi concentration camp established on August 28, 1943, near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany, in the Kohnstein south of the Harz mountains as a sub-camp of the already existing Buchenwald camp. Eventually, it comprised more than 40 camps.^[1][2] The main goal of the complex was to establish the underground production of armaments at the Mittelwerk, notably the V-2 rocket. During its 18 months of activity, approximately 60,000 prisoners from 21 nations passed through; an estimated 20,000 of those died in this prison.

Construction

Due to heavy air attacks by the Royal Air Force on the night of August 18 1943 the manufacture of the A4 in Peenemünde came to an abrupt halt. As the two other production sites in Friedrichshafen and Vienna were also affected by Allied air raids Nazi authorities decided to move production facilities underground. The Kohnstein was chosen because of its already existing tunnel system which was started in 1936 by the Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (Wifo) as an underground fuel depot for the Wehrmacht. On August 28 1943 107 inmates came with a transport from Buchenwald, followed by 1,223 on September 2. On October 13 1943 transports from Peenemünde started. Inmates were used for construction works, which were nearly completed in late summer of 1943.

With a total length of about 20 km (12 mi), a tunnel height up to 30 m (33 yd) and an area of 250,000 m (62 acres) the tunnel system in the Kohnstein was one of the largest built by the Germans. The system consists of two parallel rail tunnels (Tunnels A and B) with a length of about 1.8 km (1 mi) each, which were at the beginning connected by 17 and later by 46 transverse tunnels.^[3][4]

Weapons production

Production of the V-2 rocket was started in January 1944. Arthur Rudolph, Chief Production Engineer of the Peenemünde V-2 assembly, used concentration camp labor (mostly Russians, Poles, and French) for production of the V-2. Inmates had to live in the tunnel full time until shack camps were completed in spring 1944 above ground. From January 1944 to April 1945 about 6,000 V-2 rockets were built at Mittelbau-Dora. ^[5] In August 1944 production of the V-1 rocket was also started. Other companies with production facilities in Mittelbau-Dora were Junkers (aircraft engines) and Heinkel (aircraft).

The situation of the prisoners

Although most of the prisoners were men, a few women were held in the Dora Mittelbau camp and in the Groß Werther subcamp. Only one woman guard is now known to have served in Dora, Lagerführerin Erna Petermann. Regardless of gender, all prisoners were treated with extreme cruelty, which caused illness, injuries and deaths. Examples of the cruelty routinely inflicted on prisoners include: severe beatings that could permanently disable and/or disfigure the victims, deliberate and life-threatening starvation, physical and mental torture as well as summary execution under the smallest pretext.

Of 60,000 inmates from 21 nations, 12,000 were officially listed as dead by the Nazis. The total death toll is estimated at around 20,000, and includes deaths from air raids throughout the war and the evacuation "death marches" in 1945.

A first-person account of the extreme brutality endured by the inmates who laboured to produce and assemble the V-1 and V-2 rocket components in the huge underground tunnel complex is detailed in Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust and the Origins of the Space Age by Yves Beon^[6]. Of note in this book is the role played at Dora by Wernher von Braun, who became a top director at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) after having been smuggled into the United States. A reviewer of Planet Dora at the NASA headquarters library wrote: '...the greatest technological achievement of the twentieth century had its origins in the enslavement and murder of thousands of innocent people, the down-payment of a Faustian bargain that still tarnishes our reach for the stars'.

Liberation and Post War

Mittelbau Dora was liberated on April 11 1945 by the U.S. 104th Infantry Division, after Pfc. John M. Galione discovered the camp on April 10 and alerted liberating troops. At that time most inmates were already sent on death marches to concentration camps Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen and to the Lübecker Bucht (see Cap Arcona). Only inmates sick or dying were left behind by the Nazis. The Fedden Mission documented the conditions in June of 1945. In 1966 the "Mittelbau-Dora Mahn- und Gedenkstätte" went into operation on the initiative of the SED. The former crematorium, one of the two buildings still intact, had been altered into a museum. In 1970 the muster ground was restored and an administration building erected.

See also

• List of subcamps of Mittelbau
• Operation Paperclip

Further reading

• Sellier, Andre (2003). A History of The Dora Camp. ISBN 156663511X - French original (2001) Histoire du camp de Dora ISBN 2707135402

Notes

External links

• Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial
• The Mittelwerk/Mittelbau/Camp Dora Mittelbau GmbH - Mittelbau KZ
• John Galione, discoverer of Mittelbau-Dora
• Article based on May 21, 1945 issue of Life magazine (in German)
• 104th Infantry Division war story

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