Mittelbau-Dora
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| Nordhausen-Dora | |
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| Location: | Nordhausen, Germany |
| Coordinates: | |
| Opened: | August 28, 1943 |
| Closed: | April 9, 1945 |
| Managed by: | Schutzstaffel |
| Director: | Commandants: Otto Förschner ( -Feb 1945)[1] Richard Baer (February - April 1945)[1] |
Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi Germany labour camp that provided workers for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein.
Approximately 60,000 prisoners from 21 nations (mostly Russians, Poles, and French) passed through Dora.[citation needed] An estimated 20,000 inmates died; 9000 died from exhaustion and collapse, 350 hanged (including 200 for sabotage), the remainder were shot or died from disease or starvation.[2] The subcamps of Konzentrationslager Mittelbau (Concentration Camp Central Construction) eventually totalled more than 40.
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[edit] Operation
Following Hitler's August 22 1943 order for Heinrich Himmler to use concentration camp workers for A-4 production,[3][4] 107 inmates arrived at Nordhausen from Buchenwald on August 28, 1943, followed by 1,223 on September 2. Peenemünde workers departed for Dora on October 13, 1943.[1][5]
Originally called Block 17/3 Buchenwald, the SS administration ordered Dora to be politically separated from Buchenwald at the end of September 1944 and to become the center of Konzentrationslager Mittelbau. In effect, the camp became operational on November 1, 1944 with 32,471 prisoners.[5]
Tunnels in the Kohnstein were used as quarters until workers completed the Dora camp[5] on December 31, 1943, less than a kilometre from the tunnel B entrance to the South.[6] The camp had 58 barracks buildings[7] and the underground detainee accommodations ("sleeping tunnels") were dismantled in May 1944.[1]
Official visits included a December 10, 1943 Albert Speer visit to Dora,[1][5] and Wernher von Braun visited the Nordhausen plant on January 25, 1944. Von Braun returned for a May 6, 1944,[1] meeting with Walter Dornberger and Rudolph where Albin Sawatzki discussed the need to enslave 1,800 more skilled French workers.[5]
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| Map of KZ Dora-Mittelbau |
[edit] Dora conditions
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.
The SS used the Boelcke Kaserne, a former barracks in Nordhausen city, as a dumping ground for hopeless prisoner cases.[1] On the night of April 2, 1945, Royal Air Force bombers burned down much of Nordhausen city in two nighttime fire raids, killing 1,500 sick prisoners at Boelcke Kaserne.[5][8] On April 3, 1945, prisoners began leaving Dora to the Harzungen sub-camp about 10 miles around the Kohnstein mountain.[5]
[edit] Liberation and post war
Private John M. Galione of the 104th Timberwolf Army Infantry Division discovered Mittelbau Dora on April 10, 1945, and broke into the camp with the help of two other soldiers before sunrise on April 11. Galione then radioed the Third Armored Division and various 104th Division attachments, giving them directions to the camp. The medics of the 3rd Armored Division (United States) notified the Timberwolf Division that they discovered Nordhausen Death Camp on the way to Camp Dora (Dora and Nordhausen are two separate camps within the same complex). Lying in both camps were about 5,000 corpses. Over 1,200 patients were evacuated, with 15 dying enroute to the hospital area and 300 subsequently dying of malnutrition.[9] In January 1985, the World Jewish Congress placed articles in newspapers searching for Dora survivors.[10]
[edit] Andrae Trial
Following the June 1945 Fedden Mission investigation of the Dora conditions, 'The United States of America versus Arthur Kurt Andrae et Al.[11] trial commenced on August 7 1947 at the Dachau internment camp against the following defendants:[12]
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- Arthur Kurt Andrae
- Erhard Brauny
- Otto Brinkman
- Emil Buehring
- Heinz Detmers
- Josef Fuchsloch
- Kurt Richard Heinrich (23 May 1911- ): Executive Officer and Legal officer of C.C. Dora (Oct 44-Feb 45)
- Oskar Helbig
- Rudolph Jacobi
- Josef Kilian
- Georg Koenig
- Paul Maischein
- Hans Moeser
- Georg Rickhey: Mittelwerk General Manager
- Heinrich Schmidt
- Wilhelm Simon
- Walter Ulbricht
- Richard Walenta
- Willi Zwiener
The trial convicted fifteen Dora SS guards and Kapos (one was executed). The trial also addressed the question of liability of Nordhausen scientists[13] - Georg Rickhey was acquitted[2] and Arthur Rudolph of the Mittelwerk (recruited in 1945 under Operation Paperclip and then exiled from the US in 1984) was not even charged. A related trial was also held 1959-1961 in Essen.[5]
[edit] Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial
The Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial uses the former crematorium building (one of the two buildings still intact) as a museum. In 1970 the muster ground was restored and an administration building erected.
[edit] References and Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g Neufeld, Michael J (1995). The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. New York: The Free Press, p206,209,212,226,227,261,270.
- ^ a b Hunt, Linda (1991). Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990. New York: St.Martin's Press, 45,53,72-74,279,281. ISBN 0312055102. Retrieved on 2008-03-01.
- ^ Irving, David (1964). The Mare's Nest. London: William Kimber and Co, p245.
- ^ Collier, Basil [1964] (1976). The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944-1945. Yorkshire: The Emfield Press, p122. ISBN 0 7057 0070 4.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Béon, Yves (1997). Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust and the Birth of the Space Age, translated from the French La planète Dora by Béon & Richard L. Fague, Westview Press, Div. of Harper Collins, (SC)pXII,XIV,XIX,XX,XXII,90,282. ISBN 0-8133-3272-9.
- ^ Garliński, Józef (1978). Hitler's Last Weapons: The Underground War against the V1 and V2. New York: Times Books, p107,109.
- ^ Grigorieff, Paul. The Mittelwerk/Mittelbau/Camp Dora Mittelbau GmbH - Mittelbau KZ (html). The A-4/V-2 Resource Site. v2rocket.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-27.
- ^ Campaign Diary. Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary. UK Crown. Retrieved on 2007-05-24. 1945:April
- ^ {{cite web|last=Farris|first=Ragene|url=http://www.104infdiv.org/arch8.htm |format=html | title=Nordhausen, Germany |work= |date= |accessdate=2008-05-27 |publisher=104infdiv.org}}
- NOTE: See supporting Documents [1] regarding Galione's discovery of Mittelbau Dora. Survivors include Yves Béon<ref></ref> and André Sellier.<ref>
