Gusen concentration camp

Gusen
Subcamp
Gusen I after liberation
Location	Near Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Reichsgau Ostmark
Operated by	Nazi Germany
Companies involved	DEST, Messerschmitt, Steyr-Daimler-Puch, Poschacher [de]
Operational	25 May 1940–5 May 1945
Number of inmates	20,487 (May 1945)
Killed	At least 35,000
Liberated by	11th Armored Division (United States)
Website	www.gusen.org

Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS (Schutzstaffel) between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark (currently Perg District, Upper Austria). Primarily populated by Polish prisoners, there were also large numbers of Spanish Republicans, Soviet citizens, and Italians. Initially, prisoners worked in nearby quarries, producing granite which was sold by the SS company DEST.

Conditions were worse than at the Mauthausen main camp due to the camp's purpose of extermination through labor of real and perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. The life expectancy of prisoners was as short as six months, and at least 35,000 people died there from forced labor, starvation, and mass executions. From 1943, the camp was an important center of armaments production for Messerschmitt and Steyr-Daimler-Puch. In order to expand armaments production, the camp was redesignated Gusen I, and additional camps, Gusen II and Gusen III, were built. Prisoners were forced to construct vast underground factories, the main one being the Bergkristall [de; es], intended for the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft. Nearly a thousand fuselages were produced there by the war's end.

The camp was liberated by the United States 11th Armored Division early in the morning of 5 May 1945. During the chaos of liberation, a number of former kapos were killed. After the war, some SS personnel and kapos were tried for their crimes, although most went unpunished. The site was redeveloped into a privately owned village, although there is a small museum run by the Austrian government.