German Killing & Atrocity Centers

An eyewitness testimony cataloged by USHMM tells of the day that over 200 people were hung at Mittelbau-Dora because they did not finish a contracted rocket on time. Prisoners walking in to the underground production center had to walk through the bodies, still hanging. Such were the conditions of the inmates of Mittelbau-Dora forced to live without light and fresh air in order to produce rockets/missiles for the war effort later in the war in Germany. It is projected that if the war had continued into 1946, the technology developed in Mittelbau and produced in Japan could have turned the war to a very different end. Mittelbau-Dora once a subcamp of Buchenwald, became and independent Lager in October of 1944. A short distance away was the town of Nordhausen, where another 'camp' was designated for the ill and injured who were left there to die. M-D was used for the Mittelwerk production of the V-2 after the Baltic plant was bombed.The V2, 'retaliation' rockets were used in the bombing of Great Britain & other major cities.
Built in 8-43 by Buchenwald prisoners, by the turn of the year, M-D had 12,000 prisoners living underground during their entire interment. The number increased by 3-45 to 40,000. Over 3000 died in the first 3 months, and the death rate grew to 2000 a month with an estimated total of @20,000: 1000s were sent to other camps for extermination. Prisoners lived with little or no food, no sanitation, no ventilation in humid temperatures under 50 degrees. When the US-33rd Armored Division approached the camp bound bodies were strewn in the bombed entrance. Liberation occurred in 4-11-45 and 2 months later US Forces 'relocated' the rockets and materials found there (over 300 railcars full). Survivors today tell of grueling conditions, a last days death march and killings by hanging, starvation, disease and abandonment. (See Nordhausen)