Sankt Georgen an der Gusen (also ''St. Georgen an der Gusen'' and ''St. Georgen/Gusen'';
lit.: "
Saint George
Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...
's town on the
Gusen River") is a small market town in
Upper Austria
Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...
,
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, between the municipalities of
Luftenberg and
Langenstein. , the town had 3,779 inhabitants.
History
The town traces back to the 1600s, descendants of settlers like the Stettner and Hödlmayr families moving southwest near Perg and throughout Upper Austria.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the town was selected to be the
DEST
German Earth and Stone Works (, ) was an SS-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. DEST was a subsidiary company of ''Amtsgruppe W'' (''Amt. W'') of SS Main Economic ...
-business administration center for exploiting
slave labour in the quarries and later the industries of the
Gusen concentration camp
Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS () between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langenstein, Austria, Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark (currently Perg District, Upper Austria). Primarily popul ...
, a
subcamp of the nearby
Mauthausen concentration camp
Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...
. In early 1944 the town became the site of "
Gusen II", the most brutal sub-camp of Mauthausen. In roughly 40,000 m
2 of tunnels and caverns dug beneath St. Georgen for the
Messerschmitt company a huge and most modern underground assembly plant for
Messerschmitt Me 262
The Messerschmitt Me 262, nicknamed (German for "Swallow") in fighter versions, or ("Storm Bird") in fighter-bomber versions, is a fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber that was designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Messers ...
fuselages was operated until May 1945 under the code-name ''B8 Bergkristall - Esche II''.
[ Rudolf A. Haunschmied, Jan-Ruth Mills, Siegi Witzany-Durda: ''St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen - Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered''. BoD, Norderstedt 2008, ]
In some trials of the
Nuremberg Military Tribunal the relatively unknown term ''St. Georgen granite works'' was used to prevent the use of locations like ''Mauthausen'' or ''Gusen''.
Population
References
Cities and towns in Perg District
Mauthausen concentration camp
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