| Location | Nordhausen, Germany |
|---|---|
| Opened | 28 August 1943 |
| Closed | 9 April 1945 |
| Managed by | Schutzstaffel |
| Director | Commandants: Otto Förschner ( -Feb 1945)[1] Richard Baer (February — April 1945)[1] |
Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi Germany labour camp that provided workers for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein, situated near Nordhausen, Germany.
Approximately 60,000 prisoners from 21 nations (mostly Russians, Poles, and French) passed through Dora. An estimated 20,000 inmates died; 9000 died from exhaustion and collapse, 350 hanged (including 200 for sabotage), the remainder died mainly from disease and starvation.[2] The subcamps of Konzentrationslager Mittelbau (Concentration Camp Central Construction) eventually totalled more than 40.
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Following Hitler's 22 August 1943 order for Heinrich Himmler to use concentration camp workers for A-4 production,[3][4] 107 inmates arrived at Nordhausen from Buchenwald on 28 August 1943, followed by 1,223 on 2 September. Peenemünde workers departed for Dora on 13 October 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 1 November 1944 with 32,471 prisoners.[5]
Tunnels in the Kohnstein were used as quarters until workers completed the Dora camp[5] on 31 December 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 10 December 1943 visit to Dora by Albert Speer,[1][5] and Wernher von Braun visited the Nordhausen plant on 25 January 1944. Von Braun returned for a 6 May 1944,[1] meeting with Walter Dornberger and Rudolph where Albin Sawatzki discussed the need to enslave 1,800 more skilled French workers.[5]
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 sex, 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 2 April 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 3 April 1945, prisoners began leaving Dora to the Harzungen sub-camp about 10 miles (16 km) around Kohnstein mountain.[5]
Private John M. Galione of the 104th Timberwolf Army Infantry Division discovered Mittelbau Dora on 10 April 1945, and broke into the camp with the help of two other soldiers before sunrise on 11 April. 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) reported that they discovered Nordhausen 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 en route to the hospital area and 300 subsequently dying of malnutrition.[9]
Following the June 1945 Fedden Mission investigation of the Dora conditions, The United States of America versus Arthur Kurt Andrae et al.[13] trial commenced on 7 August 1947 at the Dachau internment camp against the following defendants:[14]
The trial convicted fifteen Dora SS guards and Kapos (one was executed). The trial also addressed the question of liability of Nordhausen scientists[15] — 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]
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.
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| Map of KZ Dora-Mittelbau |
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