View source for Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp

{{Short description|Nazi concentration camp in Germany (1943–1945)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Expand German|topic=struct|KZ Mittelbau-Dora|date=November 2011}}
{{Infobox concentration camp
| type            = <!-- Infobox subheader text, defaults to "Concentration camp" -->
| name            = Mittelbau-Dora
| image           = [[File:Nordhausenmassgrave.jpg|300px]]
| image size      =
| caption         = Supervised by American soldiers, German civilians from Nordhausen bury the corpses of prisoners found at Mittelbau-Dora in April 1945.
| coordinates     = {{coord|51|32|7.8|N|10|44|54.8|E|type:landmark|display=it}}
| other names     = Nordhausen-Dora
| known for       =
| location        = [[Nordhausen, Thuringia|Nordhausen]], Germany
| location map       = Germany 1937#Germany#Germany Thuringia
| map caption=Germany (prewar borders)##Germany (current borders)##Thuringia
| built by        =
| operated by     = [[Schutzstaffel|SS]]
| commandant      = {{unbulleted list|[[Otto Förschner]] (October 1944 – January 1945)|[[Richard Baer]] (February 1945 – April 1945)}}
| original use    = Subterranean fuel depot (tunnels)
| construction    =
| in operation    = 28 August 1943 – early April 1945
| prisoner type   =
| inmates         = About 60,000
| killed          = About 20,000
| liberated by    = US Army (remaining installations)
| notable inmates = [[Jean Améry]], [[Heinz Galinski]]
| notable books   =
}}
'''Mittelbau-Dora''' (also '''Dora-Mittelbau''' and '''Nordhausen-Dora''') was a [[Nazi concentration camp]] located near [[Nordhausen, Thuringia|Nordhausen]] in [[Thuringia]], Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of [[Buchenwald concentration camp]], supplying slave labour from many Eastern countries occupied by Germany (including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps), for extending the nearby tunnels in the [[Kohnstein]] and for manufacturing the [[V-2 rocket]] and the [[V-1 flying bomb]]. In the summer of 1944, ''Mittelbau'' became an independent concentration camp with numerous [[subcamp (SS)|subcamps]] of its own. In 1945, most of the surviving inmates were sent on death marches or crammed in trains of box-cars by the [[SS]]. On 11 April 1945, US troops freed the remaining prisoners.

The inmates at Dora-Mittelbau were treated in a brutal and inhumane manner, working 14-hour days and being denied access to basic hygiene, beds, and adequate rations. Around one in three of the roughly 60,000 prisoners who were sent to Dora-Mittelbau died.

Today, the site hosts a memorial and museum.

== Background ==
{{Main|V-2 Rocket}}

In early summer 1943, mass production of the A4 (later better known as V-2, V standing for ''Vergeltung'' or retribution) ballistic rocket started at the ''[[Peenemünde Army Research Center|Heeresanstalt Peenemünde]]'' on the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]] island of [[Usedom]] as well as at the [[Raxwerke]] in [[Wiener Neustadt]], Austria and at the [[Luftschiffbau Zeppelin|Zeppelin works]] in [[Friedrichshafen]] on [[Lake Constance]].<ref name=Buchenwald1>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/340/|title=Der Beginn: Die Verlagerung der Raketenproduktion von Peenemünde in den Kohnstein (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

On 18 August 1943, a bombing raid by the [[Royal Air Force]] on Peenemünde ("[[Operation Hydra (1943)|Operation Hydra]]") seriously damaged the facilities and ended construction of V-2s there. Other air raids had damaged the other two sites in June and August. As a result, the Nazi leadership accelerated plans to move military construction to areas less threatened by Allied bombers.<ref name="Buchenwald1" /> On 22 August 1943, [[Adolf Hitler]] ordered SS leader [[Heinrich Himmler]] to use concentration camp workers in future A4/V-2 production.<ref name=Collier>{{cite book |last=Collier|first=Basil|title=The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944–1945 |orig-year=1964 |year=1976|publisher=The Emfield Press|location=Yorkshire|isbn=0-7057-0070-4 |page=122}}</ref> One of the sites selected was at the mountain known as Kohnstein, near Nordhausen in Thuringia. Since 1936, the ''[[WIFO (Nazi company)|Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (WIFO)]]'' ({{langx|en|Economic Research Company}}) had been building a subterranean fuel depot for the [[Wehrmacht]] there. By late summer 1943, this was almost finished.<ref name="Buchenwald1" />

To oversee the creation and operation of the new construction facility, [[Albert Speer]], Himmler and [[Karl Saur]] agreed on the foundation of ''{{Interlanguage link|Mittelwerk GmbH|de}}'' (the name referring to the works' location in ''Mitteldeutschland''). Its board consisted of [[Hans Kammler]], who was head of ''Amtsgruppe C'' at the ''SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt'' (WVHA) and two of Speer's armaments managers, {{Interlanguage link|Karl Maria Hettlage|de}} and {{Interlanguage link|Gerhard Degenkolb|de}}, the former seconded from [[Commerzbank]]. To actually run the plant, {{Interlanguage link|Albin Sawatzki|de}}, who had earlier been in charge of producing the "[[Tiger I]]" tank at [[Henschel & Son|Henschel]], was appointed. Operational security for the project was overseen by ''[[Obersturmbannführer|SS-Oberstürmbannfuhrer]]'' [[Helmut Bischoff]], a former [[Gestapo]] official and a member of Kammler's staff. The initial contract for Mittelwerk was for 12,000 rockets, valued at 750 million Reichsmark for a standard price per unit, once production reached 5,000 units, of 50,000 Reichsmark per rocket.<ref name="Tooze">{{cite book|last=Tooze|first=Adam|title=The Wages of Destruction – The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy|publisher=Penguin|year=2006|isbn=978-0-14-100348-1}}</ref>{{rp|622,768}}

Especially for Kammler, this became a prestige project.<ref name=Buchenwald2>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/338/|title="Lebendig begraben": Dora im Herbst 1943(German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

== Establishment ==
Only ten days after the raid on Peenemünde, on 28 August 1943, the first 107 concentration camp inmates from Buchenwald arrived with their SS guards at the Kohnstein. The official name of the new subcamp of Buchenwald was ''Arbeitslager Dora''.<ref name="Buchenwald2" /> Another 1,223 Buchenwald prisoners followed on 2 September and workers from Peenemünde came in mid-October.<ref name=Neufeld>{{cite book |last=Neufeld|first=Michael J.|title=The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029228951|url-access=registration|year=1995|publisher=The Free Press|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029228951/page/206 206], 209, 212, 226, 227, 261, 270|isbn=9780029228951}}</ref><ref name=Beon>{{cite book |last=Béon|first=Yves |others=translated from the French ''La planète Dora'' by Béon & Richard L. Fague|title=La planète Dora |trans-title=Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust and the Birth of the Space Age|year=1997|publisher=Westview Press, div. of Harper Collins|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qARnAAAAMAAJ&q=Planet+Dora:+A+Memoir+of+the+Holocaust+and+the+Birth+of+the+Space+Age|isbn=0-8133-3272-9|pages=(SC) XII, XIV, XIX, XX, XXII, 90, 282}}</ref> Over the next months, many more prisoners were brought to the area in almost daily transports from Buchenwald. By late September, the number of workers had risen to over 3,000, by late October to 6,800 and by Christmas 1943 to more than 10,500. Since there were initially no huts, the prisoners were housed inside the tunnels – in specially designated ''Schlafstollen'' with four levels of beds stacked over each other.<ref name="Buchenwald2" />

There were no sanitary facilities except for barrels that served as latrines. Inmates (the majority of them from the Soviet Union, Poland or France) died from hunger, thirst, cold and overwork. During the first months, most of the work done was heavy construction and transport. Only in January 1944, when production of the A4/V-2 began, were the first prisoners moved to the new above-ground camp on the south side of the mountain. Many had to sleep in the tunnels until May 1944.<ref name="Buchenwald2" />

In these initial months, from October 1943 to March 1944, out of a total of 17,500 slave labourers, almost 2,900 died at Dora. Another 3,000 who were very ill or dying were sent to [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin-Majdanek]] and [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp|Bergen-Belsen]] concentration camps. Few of them survived.<ref name="Buchenwald2" /> At the end of 1943, the Dora work squads had "the highest death rate in the entire concentration camp system".<ref name="Tooze" />{{rp|768}}

By late 1943, production had started. On 10 December, Albert Speer and his staff visited the tunnels, observing the terrible conditions and finding them littered with corpses. Some members of Speer's staff were so shocked that they had to take an extra period of leave. A week later, Speer wrote to Kammler, congratulating him on his success "in transforming the underground installation ... from its raw condition two months ago into a factory, which has no equal in Europe and which is unsurpassed even when measured against American standards. I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for this really unique achievement and to ask you also in future to support Herr Degenkolb in this wonderful way."<ref name="Tooze" />{{rp|623}}

== Operation ==

=== Prisoners ===

Inmates came from almost all countries of Europe; many of them had been arrested for political reasons. After May 1944, Jews were also brought to Mittelbau. With the dissolution of the so-called ''Zigeuner-Familienlager'' (Gypsy family camp) at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], the SS transported many [[Romani people|Roma]] and [[Sinti]] to Mittelbau between April and August 1944.<ref name="Buchenwald4" />

The prisoners were subject to extreme cruelty. As a result, they often suffered injuries, including permanent disability and disfigurement, and death. Severe beatings were routine, as was deliberate starvation, torture and [[summary execution]]s.<ref name="HEAR">{{cite web | url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/dora.html | title=Dora – Mittelbau/Nordhausen | publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team | year=2007 | access-date=11 March 2013 | author=Frasier, FJ |author2=Webb, Chris |author3=Lisciotto, Carmelo}}</ref>

In total, around 60,000 prisoners passed through the Mittelbau camps between August 1943 and March 1945. The precise number of people killed is impossible to determine. The SS files counted around 12,000 dead. In addition, an unknown number of unregistered prisoners died or were murdered in the camps. Around 5,000 sick and dying were sent in early 1944 and in March 1945 to Lublin and Bergen-Belsen.<ref name=Buchenwald5B>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/347/|title=Bilanz des Schreckens (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

Of those killed, around 350 were hanged (including 200 for sabotage).<ref name=Hunt>{{cite book |last=Hunt |first=Linda |title=Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 |url=https://archive.org/details/secretagendaunit1990hunt |url-access=limited |pages=[https://archive.org/details/secretagendaunit1990hunt/page/n113 45], 53, 72–74, 279, 281 |year=1991 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=0-312-05510-2}}</ref> The rate of executions notably accelerated after the personnel from Auschwitz arrived: in February and March 1945, the SS on some days hanged 30, on one occasion even 50 prisoners.<ref name="Zeit2" />

=== Rocket production ===

On 1 January 1944, the ''Mittelwerk'' delivered its first three rockets, all of which suffered from serious production defects.<ref name="Tooze" />{{rp|623}} The SS considered those prisoners who had expanded the tunnels in autumn and winter of 1943/44 as unusable in actual production work, because they were either too weakened or not qualified for work on the assembly lines. As a result, new prisoners were brought in from other concentration camps. From March 1944, the others were moved to newly created subcamps in the area around Nordhausen where they continued to be used for digging new tunnels or working at construction sites above ground.<ref name=Buchenwald3>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/342/|title=Frühjahr 1944: Schrittweiser Umzug in das Barackenlager(German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

By late January, 56 rockets had been produced. By May, monthly output was 400 units. There were still defects, resulting in launch-pad and mid-air explosions. Output was still far below the goal of 1,000 units per month.<ref name="Tooze" />{{rp|623}} [[Wernher von Braun]] visited the Nordhausen plant on 25 January 1944 and again on 6 May 1944,<ref name=Neufeld /> when he met [[Walter Dornberger]], [[Arthur Rudolph]] and Albin Sawatzki, discussing the need to enslave another 1,800 skilled French workers.<ref name=Beon />

On 8 September 1944, the first V-2 built at Mittelbau was successfully launched targeting London. That month, production hit 600 units, a pace that was kept up until February 1945.<ref name="Tooze" />{{rp|624}}

=== Construction and subcamps ===
<!-- [[Lager Ellrich]] redirects here. Please adjust if the name of this section is changed -->
On 31 December 1943, construction of the above-ground camp, less than a kilometre from the tunnel B entrance was sufficiently completed for the workers to move in.<ref name=Garlinski>{{cite book |last=Garliński|first=Józef|author-link=Józef Garliński|title=Hitler's Last Weapons: The Underground War against the V1 and V2|year=1978|publisher=Times Books|location=New York|pages=107, 109}}</ref> The underground detainee accommodations (''Schlafstollen'' or "sleeping tunnels") were dismantled in May 1944.<ref name=Neufeld />

Besides the main camp Dora, housing an average of 15,000 prisoners, the main [[subcamp (SS)|subcamps]] were ''{{ill|Lager Ellrich|de|KZ-Außenlager Ellrich-Juliushütte|vertical-align=sup}}'' (established 2 May 1944, averaging around 8,000 prisoners), ''{{ill|Lager Harzungen|de|KZ-Außenlager Harzungen|vertical-align=sup}}'' (1 April 1944, 4,000 prisoners), ''{{ill|Lager Rottleberode|de|KZ-Außenlager Rottleberode|vertical-align=sup}}'' (13 March 1944, 1,000 prisoners) and the SS construction units III and IV (totaling around 3,000 prisoners, distributed among several small camps along a newly constructed railway line between Nordhausen and [[Herzberg am Harz]]. More subcamps were added once Mittelbau was officially independent. By spring 1945, the number of inmates totaled over 40,000 in around 40 camps.<ref name="Buchenwald4" />

From spring/summer 1944, the camp became the centre of a subcamp system of its own. Originally, these still were part of the Buchenwald system. With the creation of the ''[[Jägerstab]]'' (Fighter Staff), led by Speer, as an institution to oversee a boost to fighter plane production and the move of military production underground, facilities for the production of fighter planes for the [[Junkers]] company were to be created around Nordhausen – along with the necessary infrastructure. In addition, after the creation of the ''Geilenbergstab'' (named after [[Edmund Geilenberg]]), over the summer of 1944 more underground construction was requested for the German petroleum industry. Demand for workers for these projects was satisfied with concentration camp prisoners, but also with foreign forced labourers, [[POWs]] and drafted Germans.<ref name=Buchenwald4>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/344/|title=Sommer 1944: Die Herausbildung des KZ-Komplexes Mittelbau-Dora (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

The SS administration separated Mittelbau-Dora from Buchenwald at the end of September 1944 and Dora became the center of it. In effect, the new camp became officially operational on 1 November 1944 with 32,471 prisoners.<ref name=Beon />

=== Decline ===

By the time Dora became operational in November 1944,<ref name=Beon /> the decline of Mittelbau-Dora was already beginning. With the subcamps overcrowded and the weather turning colder, conditions in all camps deteriorated and the death rate rose significantly. After peaking in March 1944 at 750, this had declined to 100 to 150 per month by the summer. From November it picked up and in December 1944 the official tally was 570, of whom 500 died at ''Lager Ellrich''.

==== Transfers from Auschwitz ====

At the end of 1944, the SS began to evacuate the inmates of Auschwitz and [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp|Gross-Rosen]] before the advancing [[Red Army]]. Many of them were transported to the Mittelbau. Through March 1945, up to 16,000 prisoners arrived, including women and children. Although many died in transit, this raised the number of Jews at Mittelbau. Those who survived were often extremely weak or sick. Once again, the death rate rose: Between January and early April 1945, around 6,000 inmates died, around 3,000 of them at the ''[[Oswald Boelcke|Boelcke]]-Kaserne'' (a former Luftwaffe barracks) at Nordhausen, which had been used by the SS after January 1945 as the main ''Sterbelager'' (camp for the dying) for the Mittelbau system.<ref name=Buchenwald5>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/345/|title=Winter 1944/45: Beginnende Auflösung (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref> Also from January to April 1945, at least 1,700 V-2 and over 6,000 V-1 rockets were built.<ref name="Zeit3">{{cite news|url=http://www.zeit.de/2005/04/A-Auschwitz/seite-3|title=Auschwitz im Harz (p. 3, German) |newspaper=Die Zeit| date= 20 January 2005 |first=Jens-Christian|last=Wagner|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

Along with the inmates from Auschwitz arrived several hundred SS guards who joined the staff at Mittelbau, including [[Richard Baer]], who succeeded [[Otto Förschner]] as overall Mittelbau commandant on 1 February 1945. Baer replaced most senior personnel with people from Auschwitz. [[Franz Hössler]] became commandant of the ''Häftlinglager Dora''. [[Eduard Wirths]] became the new ''Standortarzt''. {{Interlanguage link|Max Sell|de}} became head of the ''Arbeitseinsatz-Dienststelle'' which coordinated the use of forced labour. {{Interlanguage link|Hans Schurz|de}} became head of the ''Politische Abteilung'' (the local [[Gestapo]] office).<ref name="Zeit2">{{cite news|url=http://www.zeit.de/2005/04/A-Auschwitz/seite-2|title=Auschwitz im Harz (p.2, German)|newspaper=Die Zeit| date= 20 January 2005 |first=Jens-Christian|last=Wagner|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

==== Allied attacks ====

On 3 and 4 April 1945, Nordhausen was attacked in two waves by several hundred [[Avro Lancaster|Lancasters]] and [[de Havilland Mosquito|Mosquitos]] of Nos 1 and 8 Groups of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Around 75% of the town was destroyed, the medieval old town was hit particularly hard. Out of 40,000 inhabitants, roughly 8,800 people died, 20,000 lost their homes. Among the dead were also an estimated 1,300-1,500 Mittelbau prisoners, who were confined at the ''Boelcke-Kaserne'' at the time.<ref name=Beon /><ref name=diary>{{cite web|url=http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/diary.html |title=Campaign Diary |work=Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary |access-date=24 May 2007 |publisher=UK Crown |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050601062147/http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/diary.html |archive-date=1 June 2005 }} '''1945''':[https://web.archive.org/web/20120118042101/http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/apr45.html April]</ref><ref name="TA">{{cite web|url=http://nordhausen.thueringer-allgemeine.de/web/lokal/politik/detail/-/specific/Das-blutende-Nordhausen-200-Menschen-gedenken-der-Bombenopfer-1206924012|title=Das blutende Nordhausen – 200 Menschen gedenken der Bombenopfer (German)|publisher=Thüringer Allgemeine| date= 3 April 2013 |first=Thomas|last=Müller|access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref><ref name=FAS>{{cite news | last =  Carstens| first = Peter| title = Feuerstürme| newspaper = Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung | pages = 7 | language = de | date = 15 February 2015 }}</ref>

== Evacuation ==
In early April 1945, as US troops were advancing towards the [[Harz]], the SS decided to evacuate most of the Mittelbau camps. In great haste and with considerable brutality, the inmates were forced to board box cars. Several trains, each with thousands of prisoners, left the area through 6 April for Bergen-Belsen, [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]] and [[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]]. Others were forced to walk through the Harz hills towards the northeast. Those unable to keep up with these death marches were summarily shot by the guards.<ref name=Buchenwald6>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/575/|title=Räumung (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

The worst atrocity occurred at Gardelegen, known as the [[Gardelegen massacre]]. More than 1,000 prisoners from Mittelbau and [[Neuengamme concentration camp|Neuengamme]] subcamps were murdered in a barn that was set on fire. Those who were not burned alive were shot by SS, Wehrmacht and men of the ''[[Volkssturm]]''.<ref name="Buchenwald6" />

Overall, although no reliable statistics on the number of deaths on these transports exist, estimates put the number of prisoners killed at up to 8,000.<ref name="Buchenwald6" />

== Liberation ==
As most of the camps of the Mittelbau system were completely evacuated, there were not many prisoners left to be liberated by the Allies. {{clarify span|Only some small subcamps, mostly containing Italian POWs, were not evacuated.|reason=Implying other subcamps were evacuated? Which?|date=June 2020}} The SS also left several hundred sick prisoners at Dora and in the ''Boelcke-Kaserne''. They were freed when US troops (consisting of the [[3rd Armored Division (United States)|3rd Armored Division]], the [[104th Infantry Division (United States)|104th Infantry Division]], and the [[9th Infantry Division (United States)|9th Infantry Division]]) reached Nordhausen on 11 April 1945. There were also around 1,300 dead prisoners at the barracks.<ref name="Buchenwald5B" /><ref name=Buchenwald7>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/346/|title=Befreiung (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

War correspondents took pictures and made films of the dead and dying prisoners at Dora. Like the documentation of Nazi atrocities at Bergen-Belsen, these were published around the globe and became some of the best-known testimonies of Nazi crimes.<ref name="Buchenwald7" />

Most of those inmates who survived the transports were freed in mid-April at Bergen-Belsen or at other camps. Some, however, remained prisoners until early May and were freed in Mecklenburg or Austria.<ref name="Buchenwald7" />

In total, even conservative estimates put the number of people who did not survive being sent to Mittelbau-Dora at over 20,000. Thus, around one in three of those confined here did not survive.<ref name="Buchenwald5B" />

<gallery>
File:Otto Förschner.jpg|{{center|Otto Förschner, camp commandant (after 11 April 1945)}}
File:Richard Baer.jpg|{{center|Richard Baer, camp commandant}}
File:1945mittelwork-nordhausen-survivors.jpg|{{center|Emaciated survivors of Nordhausen after liberation of the camp, 12 April 1945}}
File:Corpses in the courtyard of Nordhausen concentration camp.jpg|Aftermath of the British bombing raid of 3 and 4 April 1945 that destroyed the {{lang|de|Boelcke-Kaserne}}{{efn|The {{lang|de|Boelcke-Kaserne}} (Boelcke Barracks) was located in the south-east part of Nordhausen. Around 1300 inmates were killed in the British bombing raid. The barracks was a subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora Nazi concentration camp. Used as an overflow camp for sick and dying inmates from January 1945, numbers rose from a few hundred to over 6000, and the conditions saw up to 100 inmates die every day.}}
File:NordhausenApril1945.jpg|{{center|Dead workers lie in uneven rows on floors of barracks at Nordhausen.}}
File:Nordhausen camp.JPG|{{center|Corpses of prisoners in a Nordhausen barracks}}
File:Mittelbau-Dora money.jpg|{{center|Camp money}}
</gallery>

== Aftermath ==

=== Bergen-Belsen ===
Transports from Mittelbau arrived at Bergen-Belsen between 8 and 11 April 1945. Several thousand men were housed in the so-called ''Kasernenlager'' around {{Convert|2|km|mi|abbr=off}} north of the main camp, which was already overflowing with prisoners. Of the approximately 15,000 prisoners from Mittelbau, about half were from the Soviet Union and Poland. Although not in good health, these men were much healthier than most of the prisoners in the Belsen main camp. When the British Army liberated Belsen on 15 April, many of the inmates turned on their former overseers at Mittelbau. About 170 of these "[[Kapo (concentration camp)|Kapos]]" were killed that day.<ref name="Memorial Guide">{{cite book |editor-last=Knoch |editor-first=Habbo |title=Bergen-Belsen: Historical Site and Memorial |publisher=Stiftung niedersächsische Gedenkstätten |year=2010 |isbn=978-3-9811617-9-3}}</ref>{{rp|62}}

=== Belsen Trial ===
{{Main|Belsen trial}}
Some of the SS personnel who had come from Auschwitz with the evacuation trains went on to Bergen-Belsen when Mittelbau was itself evacuated. A few of them, notably [[Franz Hössler]], were prosecuted by the British military authorities at the Belsen trial in [[Lüneburg]] in September 1945. However, charges at this trial related only to crimes committed either at Auschwitz or at Bergen-Belsen, not at Mittelbau. Hössler was among those found guilty and executed on 13 December 1945.

=== Dora Trial ===
{{Main|Dora Trial}}
Following the June 1945 [[Mittelwerk|Fedden Mission]] investigation of conditions at Dora, the trial "The United States of America versus [[Arthur Kurt Andrae]] et al."<ref name=archives>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/microfilm/m1079.pdf |title=United States of America v. Kurt Andrae et al. (and Related Cases) |work=United States Army Investigation and Trial Records of War Criminals |date=27 April 1945 – 11 June 1958 |access-date=27 May 2008 |publisher=National Archives and Records Service}}</ref> trial commenced on 7 August 1947 at the [[Dachau concentration camp#After liberation|Dachau internment camp]] against 19 defendants.<ref name=booklet>{{cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/booklet-Nordhausen-labor-concentration-information-Nordhausen/dp/B0007K88BG |title=A Booklet with a Brief History of the "Dora" – Nordhausen Labor-Concentration Camps and Information on the Nordhausen War Crimes Case of the United States of America versus Arthur Kurt Andrae et al.|date=January 1947 |publisher=Prosecution Staff }}</ref> [[Otto Förschner]] was not a defendant in the Dora Trial, since he had already been executed after being convicted in the [[Dachau camp trial]].

The court convicted 15 Dora SS guards and Kapos (one of them was executed), four defendants were acquitted. The trial also addressed the question of liability of the engineers and scientists<ref name=Franklin>{{cite book |last=Franklin|first=Thomas|title=An American in Exile: The Story of Arthur Rudolph|year=1987|publisher=Christopher Kaylor Company|location=Huntsville|page=150}}</ref> — former ''Generaldirektor'' of Mittelwerk [[Georg Rickhey]] was acquitted.<ref name=Hunt /> [[Arthur Rudolph]] (recruited in 1945 under [[Operation Paperclip]] and later exiled from the US in 1984) was not even charged. A related trial was also held 1959–1961 in [[Essen]].<ref name=Beon />

=== Research continuity ===
Immediately after taking control of the area, US specialists began to inspect the rocket works and seized materials, parts and documents. They were later joined by British experts. Eventually the Soviets took over.<ref name=Buchenwald9>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/348/|title=Prozesse und Karrieren (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

Apart from Rickhey, Rudolph, and von Braun, several dozen former Mittelwerk engineers and scientists quickly hired on with the US government. They first constructed rocket weapons or jet planes and then mostly went on to join the American space program. The Soviets also hired some of the engineers.<ref name="Buchenwald9" />

Like the rocket engineers, many construction engineers at Mittelwerk were able to continue with their careers. Very few were charged in connection with their role in the Nazi slave labour program.<ref name="Buchenwald9" />

=== DP camp ===
After liberation, the US forces and the [[United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]] (UNRRA) turned Dora and Harzungen camps into accommodations for [[displaced persons]] (DPs). In mid-May 1945, there were around 14,000 people living at Dora, several hundred liberated concentration camp inmates and many POWs as well as foreign civilian forced labourers. Repatriation was fairly quick for those from Western Europe, but many from Eastern Europe had to wait months before they were able to return home. In early July, Thuringia passed from American to Soviet control. The Red Army now used Dora as a repatriation camp for former Polish and Soviet slave labourers. The Soviet authorities treated their citizens who had been forced to work for the Germans with suspicion, blaming them for collaborating with the enemy. These men were subject to debriefing by the Soviet secret service and some of them were imprisoned once more and sent to the [[Gulag]].<ref name=Buchenwald8>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/578/|title=Dp-Camp und Repatriierungslager (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

=== ''Umsiedlerlager'' ===
Once the last forced labourers had left, Dora camp was used from December 1945 by German authorities as a holding camp for [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)|Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia]]. They were then distributed among various municipalities in northern Thuringia. The number of expelled housed in the camp averaged about 5,000. The camp was dissolved in July 1946.<ref name=Buchenwald10>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/354/|title=Umsiedlerlager (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

=== Demolition ===
After that, the town of Nordhausen had the huts at Dora dismantled and re-erected at other locations in the district as emergency housing for the homeless. Only the camp's crematorium, the fire station and the camp prison remained. [[Passive rewilding|Nature reclaimed]] the area of the camp. The Soviets briefly continued to use parts of the tunnel network for manufacturing rockets. In 1947, the entrances and some internal parts were blown up in accordance with the Allied agreement to destroy military facilities in Germany.<ref name=Buchenwald11>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/577/|title=Das Verschwinden der Lager (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

Similar to what happened at Dora, most of the subcamps were soon dismantled and the wood used for heating or new construction. Local authorities decided in 1952 to demolish the Dora camp prison – in the face of protests by former detainees.<ref name="Buchenwald11" />

== Memorial ==

=== German Democratic Republic ===
[[File:Germany, Thüringen, Nordhausen, KZ Dora-Mittelbau (3).JPG|thumb|246px|Parts of bombs and rockets still litter the underground corridors of the camp (2012).]]
By the early 1950s, most of the traces of the central Dora camp had disappeared. Whilst the prison was being demolished, some people from Nordhausen began to turn the area around the crematorium into a memorial and cemetery. In 1964, the local district [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] created the ''Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Dora'' and had a sculpture by the artist Jürgen von Woyski erected in front of the crematorium. In 1966, a permanent exhibition opened inside the building under the title ''Die Blutspur führt nach Bonn'' ("the blood trail leads to [[Bonn]]"), implying a historical continuity between the Nazi concentration camp and the government of [[West Germany]].<ref name=Buchenwald12>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/355/|title=Die Gedenkstätte zur Zeit der DDR (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

By contrast with [[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]], [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]] and [[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]], the communist government of the [[GDR]] never raised Dora to the status of ''Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte'' (national memorial). In the early 1970s, the local authorities turned the completely overgrown muster ground into an ''Ehrenplatz der Nationen'' with a rostrum, flag poles and an eternal fire. In 1988, an attempt was made to access one of the tunnels inside Kohnstein, but it was abandoned due to a lack of funds that same year.<ref name="Buchenwald12" />

=== Reunified Germany ===
[[File:Germany, Thüringen, Nordhausen, KZ Dora-Mittelbau (2).JPG|thumb|246px|Rusty V-2 rocket engine in the underground production facilities of the camp (2012)]]
After reunification, the memorial was redesigned. A small portion of the original tunnel system was reopened and has been accessible to visitors since 1995. Since 2000, the ''Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora'' runs the memorial, financed by the Thuringian state and the federal government. The GDR era memorial installations were left intact as a documentation of the way the Communist regime treated the Nazi past. A new permanent exhibition opened in a new museum building in 2006. Some work has also been done at the largest subcamp, ''Lager Ellrich-Juliushütte'', that had been cut in half by the inner-German border.<ref name=Buchenwald12a>{{cite web|url=http://www.buchenwald.de/356/|title=Nach 1989 (German)|publisher=Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[List of subcamps of Mittelbau|The subcamps of ''Konzentrationslager Mittelbau'']]
* [[Erna Petermann]]
* ''[[The Good German]]''
* ''In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program'' by [[Patrick Hicks]]
* [[Colette (2020 film)]]

== References ==
; Notes
{{notelist}}

; Footnotes
{{reflist|33em}}

== Further reading ==
* Gretchen E. Schafft & Gerhard Zeidler (2011). Commemorating Hell: The Public Memory of Mittelbau-Dora. (1st ed.) University of Illinois Press, p.&nbsp;216, {{ISBN|978-0252035937}}

== External links ==
{{Commons}}
* [https://www.buchenwald.de/en/29/ Official site of the Mittelbau-Dora Memorial]
* {{cite web| url=http://dora.uah.edu/ | title= Dora and the V–2 – Slave Labor in the Space Age| publisher=University of Alabama, Huntsville| access-date=30 August 2010 }}
* [http://content.library.ccsu.edu/u?/VHP,5549 Oral history interview with James Roberts, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, who participated in the liberation of the camp] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20121212022727/http://content.library.ccsu.edu/u?/VHP,5549 |date=12 December 2012 }} from the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University
* {{YouTube|AQv0V4d8lqg|A survivor of the camp speaks of life in Dora-Mittelbau}}
{{KZ}}
{{The Holocaust}}
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[[Category:Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp| ]]
[[Category:History of Nordhausen]]
[[Category:Forced labour during World War II]]
[[Category:World War II museums in Germany]]
[[Category:World War II sites in Germany]]
[[Category:Museums in Thuringia]]
[[Category:Subcamps of Buchenwald]]
[[Category:Death marches in World War II]]