St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered

[Richard T. Eger]

I just receive a copy of this book through Christian Schmidt. I had received a note from Rudolf (Rudi) A. Haunschmied in May that the book was now available. Rudi wrote to me the following:

"Dear Richard,

this is to inform you that our new publication "St.Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen" (ISBN 978-3-8334-7440-8) is now available via www.bod.de, www.amazon.de,
www.libri.de or other online bookshops as specified on the enclosed flyer. It contains also a lot of new and previously unpublished information about B8 Bergkristall (eg. of AFHRA) and should be valuable also for people interested in aviation history or the Messerschmitt production network in the final phase of WWII. You are also referenced in the book with thanks for the information you provided especially on NASM.

Since this book was written for future generations of researchers, I would like to ask you if you could recommend this recent study to research fellows (like Boehme) and other interest groups/institutions that might be interested in deeping research/knowledge about the Mauthausen/Gusen complex, its aircraft industry or WWII in general. It contains a lot of new and previously unpublished details about the St.Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen complex. We would appreciate if the book could be entered to as much research libraries as possible in different countries to motivate future researchers to deepening research into the various fields. Therefore the book is written in English.

We would also appreciate if you could return us a helpful feedback or some recension on this new study.

We also hope that our current publication will find your appreciation too and help future generations to understand the tragedies of WWII with its very special installations in the St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen area.

Kind regards from Austria

Rudolf A. Haunschmied

Gusen Memorial Committee

http://www.gusen.org"

I had supplied some information on Bergkristall to Rudi to assist with the book. I also by chance ran into one of his co-authors, Jan-Ruth Mills, while researching at NARA II in College Park, MD. Jan was industriously researching for the book. The book's third author is Siegi Witzany-Durda.

My primary interest in the book dealt with what Rudi and his co-authors had discovered about Me 262 fuselage production at St. Georgen near Linz, Austria. So, my first foray was to read that section of the book. Rudi and I had previously disagreed on the claim that complete Me 262's were assembled at St. Georgen. He still presents this thesis, but also goes on to describe that, in reality, only Me 262 fuselages and possibly wing slats were produced at St. Georgen. Perhaps the discrepancy is in what might have been proposed, as many things were proposed in WW II Germany that never went further than the piece of paper they were written on. Thus, this issue, until I can investigate his sources, remains unresolved.

The production of Me 262 fuselages, however, is only a sidelight to the real story told by Rudi and his co-authors, that being in the treatment of the CC inmates, in the camps, at the work sites, and in between. The systematic brutality is quite well documented, as well as the occasional showing of some kindnesses. The authors only ocassionally use adjectives in their descriptions that reflect on their own personal feelings of horror, but rather utilize the observations of the participants, themselves, that actually survived this holocaust; or of written records.

Having completed the chapter specifically dealing with the Me 262, I read on, finally working my way into the chapter dealing with the liberation of the camps. Here, I found that a scant force of a platoon of 23 American soldiers liberated some 40,000 inmates at CC Mauthausen and Gusen I and II. Talk about being overwhelmed!! This turn of events occurred because the Allied commanders were focused on other priorities, one of which was to stop the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. There was also the threat of a last stand by the Germans, who had initiated a peace initiative with the threat that, failing that, there might be an unnecessarily bloody ending to the war.

The book is exceptionally well written and researched. The footnote references as well as back of the book references are superb. Everything is backed up.

While we tend to focus on air combats, aces, and aircraft details, this book presents the ugly underbelly of Nazi Germany as it relates to one specific aircraft's production. It should be must reading so that we can also gain perspective on just what was going on that the Allies, whether knowingly or not, were actually fighting. It isn't an easy read but, at the same time, it is tough to put down once you start into it.

Regards,
Richard