Melk concentration camp (also called Melk labor camp and KZ Melk, A.K.Me.) was a forced labor unit for men in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Mauthausen, Upper Austria. Prisoners there were forced to construct an underground ball-bearing factory for the Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG company. Prisoners were also constructed various barracks in the region and the "Luftwaffe colony" in Loosdorf. Other prisoners were forced to work at the Hopferwieser ST & A Sawmill (now ) in Amstetten, which produced pit props for underground installations. The camp was established on January 11, 1944. Approximately 14,390 prisoners were transported to Melk, where at least 4,896 perished. The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945.
In January 1944, a Kommando of Mauthausen concentration camp was established in Melk, Lower Austria, in the former abandoned barracks of the Wehrmacht pioneers Freiherr von Birago, then located in the Reichsgau Niederdonau, about 100 km east of Linz. An initial detachment of approximately 500 prisoners arrived on April 11, 1944, to prepare the facilities for up to 7,000 inmates. The camp officially opened on April 20 and 21, 1944.
The prisoners were housed in 18 blocks, some of which were equipped with military equipment recovered from the Wehrmacht. The Quarz GmbH company, responsible for the forced labor operation, supplied beds, straw bags, and blankets. Initially, the camp had relatively better facilities than many other concentration camps, but this situation quickly deteriorated due to overcrowding and catastrophic sanitary conditions.
In total, 14,390 prisoners from at least 26 countries were held in the Melk Kommando. The camp's initial capacity of 7,000 prisoners was not reached until mid-September 1944.Prisoners evacuated from the main Natzweiler camp were transferred there, followed starting in January 1945 by deportees arriving from Auschwitz. According to historian Hans Maršálek, the camp reached its peak population on January 30, 1945, with 10,352 inmates.
Beginning in September 1944, prisoners evacuated from the main Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp were transferred to Melk, followed from January 1945 by deportees from Auschwitz. According to historian Hans Maršálek, the camp reached its maximum capacity on January 30, 1945, with 10,352 prisoners.
The main national groups consisted of Poles, Hungarians, French, Soviet citizens, Germans, Italians, Greeks, and Yugoslavs. Prisoners from other countries, including Albania, Egypt, Denmark, Portugal, Turkey, and the United States, were also interned there. Approximately 30% of the prisoners were Jewish.
The last transport of prisoners arrived on January 29, 1945, from Auschwitz and included 2,000 people, including 119 children aged 9 to 15. A crematorium was built in the autumn of 1944; between December 1944 and April 1945, more than 3,500 bodies were cremated there.
Transport documents indicate that 1,440 sick or wounded prisoners were returned to the main camp at Mauthausen as they were considered unfit for work (arbeitsunfähig). The death register kept by the camp doctor recorded 4,802 deaths at Melk, including 1,019 in January 1945 alone, over 30 deaths per day. Approximately one-third of the prisoners transferred to Melk died within the first six months of being at the camp.
SS statistics indicate the nationalities of the dead as follows: 1,575 Poles; 1,432 Hungarians; 546 French; 388 Soviet citizens; 302 Italians; 174 Yugoslavs; 150 Germans and Austrians; 101 Greeks; 36 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians; 26 Dutch; 22 Czechs; 17 Norwegians; 12 Spaniards; 9 Belgians; 3 Swiss; 4 Luxembourgers; 2 Turks; 1 Portuguese; 1 Albanian; and 1 stateless person.
Mauthausen concentration camp The Mauthausen concentration camp was built in August 1938 on the hills above the town of Mauthausen, Austria. In May 1940, a subcamp was opened in Gusen, a few kilometers away. The concentration camp complex continued to expand, becoming a sorting and transfer center for prisoners sent to external camps (see List of the 46 subcamps of Mauthausen).
As the war progressed, the exploitation of forced labor in the concentration camps became a priority, resulting in the proliferation of subcamps dependent on the main camp. To support the Reich's war effort, the SS leased prisoners to factories such as Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, Reichswerke Hermann Goering, Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, Porsche GmbH, and Solvay GmbH.
From late 1943 onward, Allied strategic bombing raids forced German authorities to relocate key industrial and military activities to camouflaged sites, including mines, bunkers, and tunnels. The construction of these facilities mobilised thousands of prisoners who worked under inhumane living conditions. Due to the damage inflicted by Allied raids, numerous Kommandos (work details) were deployed to clear debris, repair infrastructure, and construct emergency shelters.
Quartz Project
On February 8, 1944, Josef Stini presented a "geological report concerning the construction of alternative parts in the Wachberge near Melk". In April 1944, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp was established in Melk, in a military barracks evacuated due to the advance of Soviet forces and the threat of Allied bombing from Italy. This camp was intended to provide slave labor for the construction of an underground ball-bearing production plant for the Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG company. Although the initial plan called for the use of 20,000 prisoners, 14,400 prisoners were assigned to Melk during the following year, of whom approximately 7,000 worked permanently on the construction site from July 1944. The deportees, leased by the SS to industrial companies, constituted the main workforce assigned to earthworks and construction, while a constant stream of new arrivals compensated for human losses caused by the extremely harsh working and detention conditions.
Camp governance Two hierarchies operated the camp: that of the SS and guards, and that of the prisoners. The SS implemented Nazi directives, while the prisoner hierarchy enforced these rules among the inmates with a level of harshness and inhumanity comparable to that of SS officers.
SS personnel Fewer than ten SS men were stationed in the camp, yet this small number was sufficient to maintain a climate of terror. They were aided by members of the Luftwaffe and by certain prisoners who were weak or compliant.
The first Lagerführer was Anton Streitwieser, a young Hauptsturmführer (SS captain). He was reportedly more interested in amusement, even at the expense of prisoners' lives, than in enforcing work. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1967 and died in prison in 1972.
In May 1944, Streitwieser was replaced by another SS captain, Julius Ludolph, who had previously been deemed too harsh at the Loibl Pass by the engineers and company executives. Ludolph remained in his post until the end of the camp's operation. According to accounts, he was not very intelligent, and prisoners such as Hermann Hofstädt and Antonin Pichon were sometimes able to manipulate him, though at great personal risk. Pichon suffered a memorable beating during roll call. Ludolph was tried, convicted, and hanged in April 1947.
The Rapportführer, responsible for presenting personnel at each roll call, was Oberscharführer (Feldwebel) Curt Jansen. The Arbeitdienstführer was SS Feldwebel Ernst Schindler, who oversaw work in conjunction with Antonin Pichon. Hauptscharführer Otto Striegel managed the camp's food supply, from the train station to the kitchen. In June and July 1944, another SS member, known as Willy, a former seminarian, was assigned to supervise the kitchen exits.
In the infirmary "Revier", SS Sergeant Gottlieb Muzikant exercised considerable abuse toward sick prisoners. Muzikant had previously worked as a house painter and served as an SS medic. In 1960, he was sentenced by the Fulda Regional Court to 21 terms of life imprisonment for the murder of 90 seriously ill prisoners by phenol injection and for the strangulation of at least 100 other prisoners.
Each block had its Blockführer, and each commando had a Kommandoführer. SS men filled some of these positions, but many were held by prisoners recruited from the camp's rank and file. Those supervising camp labor commandos were often particularly brutal.
Guards Five hundred soldiers of the Luftwaffe (the Nazi air force) were responsible for external surveillance of the camp. In the autumn of 1944, control of these guards was transferred to the Waffen-SS . Officially, they were not allowed to enter the camp itself. The Luftwaffe soldiers carried out guard duties from watchtowers surrounding the camp, along the sentry cordon, and near various work detachments. They also escorted the camp's work details to and from their work sites. Guards' duties frequently involved physically assaulting prisoners or shooting those who were deemed to have "attempted to escape", though in many cases these killings were deliberate.
Franz Höger, a former Wehrmacht platoon commander who had commanded a prisoner guard unit (ten-year prison sentence)
Lagerälteste The prisoners were led and commanded by common criminals, for whom a man's life had little value. Over the months, the political prisoners learned to counter the common criminals.
The first Lagerälteste, the camp elder, was named Tony, a black triangle. As early as June, he was replaced by Herbert Wernig, known as Bertl, who had a reputation for killing at the Mauthausen quarry. He had previously been the chief of police. He was a common criminal whom Ludolph respected because he was an old soldier. He ran the camp with a heavy hand, but not very intelligently.
In December, Wernig became head of Block XIV and was replaced as Lagerälteste by Henri Scherrer, a French political prisoner and non-commissioned officer in the Chasseurs Alpins (light infantry), who held the role until the camp's closure. Antonin Pichon had first appointed him head of Block XVII, populated by Russians who did not tolerate the injustice and corruption of the German block leaders. Antonin Pichon proposed him to Ludolph as the camp's senior officer, and he was accepted. This was a great victory for the "Politics".
Each block had a Blockälteste, each kommando, a Kapo.
Fidel Balbas and Uli Schmidt, both former kapos, were sentenced to death by a French military tribunal convened in Rastatt after being found guilty of murdering several of their fellow inmates during acts of extreme brutality.
Resistance
The Schreibstube, the secretariat, was a highly effective clandestine counter-power. It was run by Berlin lawyer Hermann Hofstädt and French journalist André Ulmann, known as "Antonin Pichon". Hermann was the head of the secretariat, while "Tonin" was the secretary of the labor department: they allocated positions in the blocks and work details. Ludolph was powerless against them: they kept his accounts secret, because they knew about Ludolph's illegal activities. They took advantage of this to manage both the economic and military Resistance, thereby fostering solidarity.
Several block leaders, secretaries, or kapos were appointed to counter the "common criminals". Among the block leaders were Henri Scherrer in Block V, then XVII, and Paul Scherrer in Block VIII. Among the secretaries: Charles Meyer in block II, Metty Dockendorf in block IV, and André Fougerousse in block XIV. It was not without danger: Tony, the first camp leader, was reassigned to distributing clothes, and Otto Baumgartner, secretary of the Revier, was sent to the disciplinary company.
Prisoners