Mittelbau Dora

The Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp was preceded by the development of the A4 rocket as a weapon of terror – later known by the propaganda designation V2 (Vergeltungswaffe) – at the Peenemünde Army Research Centre on the island of Usedom. It was there, as well as at the Rax Works in Wiener Neustadt and at Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, that the serial production of this rocket began in the early summer of 1943. Hidden beneath Kohnstein Mountain near Nordhausen in Thuringia, tens of thousands of prisoners from across occupied Europe were forced to excavate tunnels, build underground production facilities and manufacture one of Nazi Germany's most advanced weapons. The appalling living conditions, relentless labour, starvation and brutality claimed the lives of thousands before the camp was liberated in April 1945.

A heavy air attack by the Royal Air Force on the night of 18 August 1943 brought A4 manufacture in Peenemünde to an abrupt halt. At the other two sites, production had also been adversely affected by Allied air raids during the same summer. The bombing of Peenemünde gave the authorities no other choice but to move the undertaking to regions less exposed to air attack. A decision was made in favour of the tunnel system belonging to the Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (Wifo) near Kohnstein Mountain close to Nordhausen in Thuringia. Beginning in 1936, the Wifo had been constructing an underground fuel storage facility there for the Wehrmacht. By the late summer of 1943, these construction works were nearing completion.

Additional historical context: The decision to move production underground followed Operation Hydra, the codename for the RAF bombing raid against Peenemünde. Although the attack delayed Germany's rocket programme by only a few months, it convinced the Nazi leadership that future production had to be protected from Allied bombing. The enormous tunnel complex beneath the Kohnstein offered both security and sufficient space to establish what became the Mittelwerk underground factory.

The Foundation of Dora Labour Camp

On 28 August 1943, a mere ten days after the air attack on Peenemünde, the first 107 concentration camp inmates arrived at the Kohnstein near Nordhausen with their SS guards. A new subcamp of Buchenwald Concentration Camp was thus founded: the Arbeitslager Dora (Dora Labour Camp), as it was officially designated by the SS.

In the weeks and months that followed, further inmate transports arrived from Buchenwald almost daily.

Living Underground

By the end of September 1943, there were already more than 3,000 concentration camp inmates in the Kohnstein, by the end of October more than 6,800, and by Christmas 1943 more than 10,500. Yet Dora was not a camp in the strict sense of the word. Because no barracks or permanent living quarters had yet been made available for the inmates, the SS housed them in the tunnels of the planned Mittelwerk, as one section of the underground factory was called. For this purpose, Chambers 43 to 46 – four transverse chambers of the ladder-shaped tunnel system – were furnished with four-tiered wooden bunks.

There were no sanitary facilities apart from oil barrels which had been sawed in half for use as latrines. The inmates suffered and died of hunger, thirst, cold and the heavy labour itself. In the initial months, a large percentage of them were put to work doing heavy construction and transport labour for the completion of the underground rocket plant. This task had priority over the construction of the aboveground barrack camp on the south side of the Kohnstein.

It was not until January 1944, when the production of the A4 rockets got underway in the Mittelwerk, that the first inmate groups were moved to the barrack camp. Many remained in the crowded conditions of the underground sleeping chambers until May 1944.

Additional historical context: The tunnels measured almost 20 kilometres (12 miles) in total and eventually housed one of the largest underground armaments factories built during the Second World War. Prisoners worked around the clock in dust-filled tunnels with little fresh air, inadequate food and almost no medical care. The deadly combination of exhaustion, disease and brutal treatment caused thousands of deaths long before the first V-2 rockets left the assembly lines.

Thousands Died During the Construction Phase

A large number of inmates, the majority of them Russians, Poles and French, did not survive the wretched months of the tunnel construction phase. Between October 1943 and March 1944, nearly 2,900 inmates died in Dora. A further 3,000 dying inmates were transferred to Lublin-Majdanek and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps in the spring of 1944. Hardly any of them survived. For the SS, which had directed the construction work, the tunnel system of the Mittelwerk was a prestige project. Particularly SS-Gruppenführer Hans Kammler, chief of Office C of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA), was intent on distinguishing himself with a view towards further construction projects in the armaments sector.

Additional historical context: Prisoners died not only from starvation, disease and exhaustion, but also from frequent beatings, arbitrary executions and industrial accidents. The combination of relentless forced labour, overcrowding, poor sanitation and almost non-existent medical care made the construction phase one of the deadliest periods in the history of the camp.

From Construction Camp to Rocket Factory

By January 1944, the construction process had advanced to the point where the assembly of A4 rockets could begin. The commencement of A4 production in the Mittelwerk was accompanied by the restructuring of Camp Dora. The inmates who had survived the enervating construction labour of the fall and winter of 1943/44 were considered no longer exploitable for rocket production, as they either were too debilitated physically or lacked the professional qualifications for work on the assembly lines. New inmates were therefore brought to Dora, having been specifically selected in other concentration camps for the production of the A4 rockets. From March 1944 onwards, their exhausted predecessors were sent to the subcamps being established in the vicinity of Nordhausen, where they were required to work on tunnel-driving or aboveground construction sites.

By the spring of 1944, Dora had thus developed into a turntable for the transfer of inmates and taken on the function of a parent camp.

Additional historical context: On 28 October 1944, Dora officially became an independent concentration camp under the name Konzentrationslager Mittelbau, no longer administered as a subcamp of Buchenwald. By the end of the war, the Mittelbau complex controlled 39 satellite camps, supplying forced labour to underground factories, construction projects and armaments facilities throughout the region.

The V-2 Rocket Programme

The primary purpose of the Mittelwerk was the assembly of the A4 rocket, better known as the V-2. Measuring approximately 14 metres (46 feet) in length and powered by liquid fuel, it became the world's first operational long-range guided ballistic missile. Beginning in September 1944, thousands of V-2 rockets were launched against London, Antwerp, Liège and other Allied cities. Travelling faster than the speed of sound, the missiles struck without warning, making interception impossible with the technology available at the time.

Although the V-2 represented a remarkable technological achievement, it had little influence on the outcome of the war. More people died producing the rockets inside the Mittelbau-Dora camp system than were killed by the V-2 attacks themselves. The programme therefore remains one of history's clearest examples of advanced technology being built through systematic exploitation and forced labour.

Engineers and Responsibility

The development and production of the V-2 involved many German engineers, scientists and military officials. Among the best known were Wernher von Braun, technical director of the rocket programme, and General Walter Dornberger, who directed the Army's rocket development programme. Although the design of the rocket originated at Peenemünde, its mass production depended entirely upon the labour of concentration camp prisoners at Mittelbau-Dora. Engineers, military authorities, industrial managers and the SS all played essential roles in transforming the underground tunnels beneath the Kohnstein into one of Nazi Germany's largest forced labour complexes.

Additional historical context: Following Germany's surrender in May 1945, many of the engineers associated with the V-2 programme were recruited by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Their expertise helped shape the early Cold War missile programmes and ultimately contributed to the development of modern space exploration. At the same time, the suffering of the prisoners whose forced labour had made these technological advances possible remained overlooked for many years.

The Evacuation of the Mittelbau Camps

By the beginning of April 1945, Allied forces were advancing rapidly into central Germany. As the front approached, the SS began evacuating the Mittelbau camp system in an attempt to prevent prisoners from being liberated and to conceal evidence of the crimes committed there. The majority of the Mittelbau camps were completely vacated. Only a few small camps with populations consisting solely of Italian prisoners of war were not evacuated. The SS moreover left several hundred sick and dying inmates behind in the Dora camp and the Boelcke Barracks. They were liberated on 11 April 1945 when American troops marched into Nordhausen.

Additional historical context: Between 3 and 10 April 1945, more than 40,000 prisoners were forced to leave the Mittelbau camp system aboard overcrowded trains or on foot. Thousands died during these evacuation transports and death marches from starvation, exhaustion, exposure, disease or were shot by their guards if they could no longer continue.

Liberation

On the days that followed, American war correspondents took photographs and films of the enfeebled and starving inmates in Dora and the Boelcke Barracks—images that soon went around the world and are today among the best-known testimonies to the crimes committed by Nazi Germany. For the most part, the survivors of the clearance transports and death marches were liberated in the barracks camp of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and in other camps during mid-April 1945. However, a number of survivors remained in the hands of their tormentors and were not liberated until early May 1945 in Mecklenburg and Austria.

Additional historical context: The shocking photographs and film footage recorded by American military photographers at Nordhausen were widely published in newspapers and newsreels throughout the world. Together with the liberation footage from camps such as Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, they became some of the most compelling visual evidence presented to demonstrate the scale of Nazi crimes against humanity.

Justice After the War

Following Germany's surrender, Allied investigators examined the crimes committed at Mittelbau-Dora. Evidence collected from survivors, camp records and the liberated site formed the basis for later war crimes investigations. Between 7 August and 30 December 1947, the Dora Trial was held by a U.S. Military Tribunal at the former Dachau Concentration Camp. Twenty-four former members of the SS, camp administration and prisoner functionaries were tried for war crimes committed at Mittelbau-Dora and its satellite camps.

Several defendants, including former camp commandant Richard Baer, escaped prosecution because they had either died, disappeared or could not be located. Others received prison sentences, while a number of senior figures connected with the V-2 programme were never prosecuted for their involvement in the exploitation of forced labour.

Additional historical context: Hans Kammler, who oversaw the underground construction programme, disappeared during the final days of the war. His exact fate remains uncertain and continues to be debated by historians. Despite extensive post-war investigations, no definitive evidence has established precisely where or how he died.

Mittelbau-Dora Today

Today, Mittelbau-Dora Memorial is a place of learning and commemoration. Relics on the former camp grounds and in the tunnels testify to the crimes, but also to the differing treatment of the site's history over the decades. Changing exhibitions inspire critical examination of the past. The permanent exhibition, opened in 2006, presents Mittelbau-Dora not only as a model case of forced labour and the relocation of armaments production to underground locations, but also as an example of the close integration of the concentration camp system into German society during the Third Reich.

Today, visitors can walk through parts of the original tunnel system, explore the museum exhibitions and learn about the prisoners who were forced to build one of Nazi Germany's most advanced weapons under conditions of unimaginable brutality. The memorial continues to preserve their stories while promoting education, remembrance and historical research.

The Legacy of Mittelbau-Dora

Between August 1943 and April 1945, approximately 60,000 prisoners from almost every occupied country in Europe passed through the Mittelbau-Dora camp system. At least 20,000 of them died as a result of starvation, disease, executions, exhaustion, industrial accidents or the death marches during the final weeks of the war. Mittelbau-Dora stands as a stark reminder of how scientific innovation, industrial production and state-sponsored terror became intertwined under the Nazi regime. The underground factories beneath the Kohnstein produced one of the most sophisticated weapons of the Second World War, yet they were built and operated through the systematic exploitation and destruction of human life.

Today, the preserved tunnels and memorial site ensure that the victims are remembered not simply as anonymous labourers, but as individuals whose suffering formed the hidden cost of Germany's V-2 rocket programme.

Historical overview based primarily on information provided by the Mittelbau-Dora Memorial, reproduced with permission. Additional historical context has been incorporated from established scholarly research to provide broader background for readers.