Tetraclass Model

Melk labor camp
Concentration camp – forced labor subcamp
New arrivals at Melk, a subcamp of Mauthausen, being counted, 1944
Location within Austria
Coordinates	48°13′35″N 15°21′00″E
Location	Melk, Austria
Number of inmates	14,390
Killed	4,896
Liberated by	Red Army

The Melk labor camp (Arbeitskommando Melk, A.K.Me.) was a male forced-labor subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Prisoners were assigned to the construction of an underground ball-bearing factory for the company Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG. The camp was established on 11 January 1944.

Approximately 14,390 prisoners passed through the camp, of whom at least 4,896 died. The camp was liberated on 5 May 1945 by Soviet forces.

Establishment

In January 1944, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp was established at Melk in Lower Austria, in former barracks previously used by Wehrmacht engineering units. At the time, Melk was located in the Reichsgau Niederdonau, approximately 100 km east of Linz.

An initial detachment of around 500 prisoners arrived on 11 April 1944 to prepare facilities intended to accommodate up to 7,000 inmates. The camp officially became operational on 20–21 April 1944.

Living conditions

Prisoners were housed in 18 barracks, partially equipped with reused Wehrmacht military material. The company Quarz GmbH, responsible for exploiting forced labor, provided beds, straw sacks, and blankets. Initially, conditions were considered better than in many other concentration camps; however, they deteriorated rapidly due to overcrowding and catastrophic sanitary conditions.

Prisoner population

A total of 14,390 prisoners from at least 26 countries were detained at Melk. The camp reached its initial capacity only in mid-September 1944. From September 1944 onward, prisoners evacuated from the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp were transferred to Melk, followed in January 1945 by deportees from Auschwitz. According to historian Hans Maršálek, the camp reached its maximum population on 30 January 1945 with 10,352 inmates.

The principal national groups included Poles, Hungarians, French, Soviet citizens, Germans, Italians, Greeks, and Yugoslavs. Prisoners from Albania, Egypt, Denmark, Portugal, Turkey, and the United States were also interned. Approximately 30% of the prisoners were Jewish.

The final transport of 2,000 deportees arrived on 29 January 1945 from Auschwitz and included 119 children aged between 9 and 15. A crematorium was constructed in autumn 1944, where more than 3,500 bodies were cremated between December 1944 and April 1945.

Transport records indicate that 1,440 sick or injured prisoners were returned to Mauthausen as unfit for work (arbeitsunfähig). The camp death register records 4,802 deaths, including 1,019 in January 1945 alone—more than 30 deaths per day. Approximately one-third of all prisoners transferred to Melk died within the first six months of the camp's existence.

Forced labor and the Quartz Project

The Melk camp formed part of the so-called Quartz Project (Projekt Quarz), a Nazi plan to relocate strategic armaments production to underground facilities in response to Allied bombing. Prisoners were forced to excavate tunnels in the Wachberg hills near Melk to construct an underground ball-bearing factory for Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG.

Although initial plans envisioned the use of up to 20,000 prisoners, approximately 14,400 were ultimately assigned to Melk, with around 7,000 continuously employed on construction work from July 1944 onward. Continuous arrivals of new prisoners compensated for the high mortality caused by extreme working and living conditions.

Camp administration

Two parallel hierarchies governed the camp: the SS administration and the prisoner functionary system.

SS personnel

The first Lagerführer was SS Hauptsturmführer Anton Streitwieser. He was replaced in May 1944 by Julius Ludolph, who remained in command until the camp's liberation.

Other SS officials included Curt Jansen (Rapportführer), Ernst Schindler (Arbeitdienstführer), Otto Striegel (supply supervision), and Gottlieb Muzikant, who operated in the infirmary and was notorious for brutality.

Guards

Approximately 500 members of the Luftwaffe provided external security, later replaced by the Waffen-SS in autumn 1944. Guards frequently assaulted prisoners or shot those allegedly attempting escape, often as deliberate acts of murder.

Prisoner functionaries

Internal administration was initially dominated by criminal prisoners, later increasingly challenged by political prisoners. The role of Lagerälteste eventually passed to Henri Scherrer, a French political prisoner, marking a significant shift in internal power relations.

Resistance and counter-power

The Schreibstube (camp registry office) functioned as an effective clandestine counter-power within the camp. It was run by two prisoners: the Berlin lawyer Hermann Hofstädt and the French journalist André Ulmann, known as “Antonin Pichon”. Hofstädt served as head of the registry office, while Ulmann was secretary of the labour service. Together, they controlled the allocation of prisoners to blocks and work details.

According to survivor accounts, Julius Ludolph was unable to act against them, as they managed his secret accounts. This position enabled them to support networks of prisoner resistance, including forms of economic organisation and mutual aid.

As part of this strategy, several block leaders, clerks, and kapos were appointed in order to counter the dominance of prisoners classified as “criminals” (Berufsverbrecher). Among the block leaders were Henri Scherrer at Blocks V and later XVII, and Paul Scherrer at Block VIII. Among the clerks were Charles Meyer at Block II, Metty Dockendorf at Block IV, and André Fougerousse at Block XIV. These activities involved significant risk: Tony, the first camp elder, was reassigned to clothing distribution, and Otto Baumgartner, secretary of the Revier (infirmary), was sent to the penal company.

Prisoners

On 21 April 1944"Le convoi du 6 avril 1944 - Monument Mauthausen III". monument-mauthausen.org. Retrieved 2026-01-30., a first group of 500 prisoners arrived: 420 French nationals, 30 Spaniards, and 30 Germans. Two days later, on 23 April, 532 French prisoners transferred from Mauthausen joined them. Subsequently, prisoners from across Europe (Germany, Austria, Spain, Poland, Greece, Romania, Italy, Yugoslavia, Russia, etc.) arrived on a weekly basis, including an initial group of Hungarian Jews transferred from Auschwitz on 28 May 1944. On 20 September 1944, 1,080 French, Russian, and Polish deportees evacuated from Natzweiler (located in annexed Alsace) to Dachau arrived at Melk. The final transport—part of a convoy that left Auschwitz during its evacuation on 27 January 1945—consisted of Jews deemed “fit for work,” accompanied by their guards, as well as around one hundred children under the age of fifteen who had survived the Polish camps. The camp held an average population of approximately 10,000 prisoners representing 25 different nationalities. Of the 14,400 men deported to Melk, 4,801 died there, including 663 French nationals. List of deportees from Melk

Forced labour

All prisoners, who were exclusively male, were forced to excavate vast tunnels in the mountains near Roggendorf for the production of armaments for Steyr-Daimler-Puch. Prisoners were also employed in the construction of barracks in the surrounding area and of the “Luftwaffe camp” at Loosdorf. Other inmates worked in a large sawmill at Amstetten, which supplied the timber required for the underground installationsde:KZ Melk. Excavating the galleries and pouring concrete for the tunnel vaults were among the most dangerous and physically exhausting tasks. However, daily life in the overcrowded former barracks was equally unbearable for all prisoners. Throughout the winter, the Danube valley was subjected to strong winds, rain, and snow, while the very short summer was oppressively hot. Chronic undernourishment, inherent to the camp system, was further aggravated by diversions carried out by the SS. In addition to the two daily roll calls, prisoners were subjected to countless additional assemblies, lengthy and unpredictable, at all hours of the day and night. Violence was constant: beatings with rubber truncheons and executions punished the slightest fault, real or alleged. The systematic elimination of the weakest prisoners was an immutable rule"MELK - Monument Mauthausen III". monument-mauthausen.org. Retrieved 2026-01-30.""Nous avions atteint un degré d'humiliation, de subordination, qu'on ne pouvait pas supporter"". Le Monde. 2004-11-16. Retrieved 2026-01-30.. At dawn, in the cold or snow, the departure through the camp gate of a column of several hundred men, aligned five abreast and methodically counted by the guards, was already striking in scale. In the evening, however—at nightfall, or worse still at ten o’clock when the afternoon shift returned—the scene became truly frightening. The weakest prisoners, the sick, or those temporarily protected instinctively feared the day they would be forced to join these ranks. Wooden clogs struck the ground in an irregular rhythm, devoid of any military discipline. Bodies were stiff, movements jerky, and the striped uniforms gave the mass of men the appearance of a compact block in motion. Faces, when visible, bore the marks of exhaustion: hollow features, protruding cheekbones, vacant stares. Electric lighting heightened the almost unreal character of this endless procession. Prisoners passed by in their hundreds. The final ranks were composed of bodies broken by eight hours of exhausting labour and two hours of travel. In each row of five, two men often had to be supported—or even carried—by the other three. Some were dragged along the ground without the pace being allowed to slow. In the most serious cases, frequent in December, the last row no longer consisted of five men walking together, but of four bearers carrying on a plank a fifth prisoner, utterly exhausted, unconscious, injured, dying, or already dead. The essential requirement was that the count be respected: always “five abreast”.

Revier / Infirmary

The infirmary (*Revier*) further contributed to making survival increasingly uncertain. Designed to accommodate 300 patients and lacking adequate medical equipment, it housed up to 1,700 prisoners, crammed into two barracks, with little prospect of recovery, under the supervision of Gottlieb Musikant. Prisoners who were most seriously ill or injured were transferred to Mauthausen, where, until November 1944, the bodies of those who died at Melk were also sent.

Gottlieb Musikant conducted daily inspections of the sick in the manner of an SS officer. The kapo Zenon Michalak provided limited medication for treatment in Block XIV. Doctors Guy Lemordan, Then Sprunk, and Hirsch; the surgeon Wassilis Rakopoulos; orderlies Lucien Roth, Louis Jolivet, and Jean Polak; Raymond Hallery (known as the “bread toaster”); the pharmacist Jacques Gander; and the dentist René Perrier, among others, attempted to save those—and whatever—they could. In 1945, they were assisted by Josef Sora, a Luftwaffe medical officer and deputy to Musikant.

Crematorium

In November 1944, a crematorium built by prisoners near the Revier was put into operation. Between 6 November 1944 and 15 April 1945, 4,048 men were cremated there.

Bombing of 8 July 1944

At 11:00 a.m. on 8 July 1944, Anglo-American aircraft bombed the camp, mistakenly identifying it as a German barracks. Between 200 and 1,000 prisoners were killed, most of them Hungarian Jews assigned to night shifts, trapped by the fire in the only barrack that remained locked. The raid also left around 200 prisoners injured, as well as several civilian casualties among the population of Melk. By contrast, the approaches to the underground construction site at Roggendorf—despite being clearly visible—were spared.

Evacuation

The liquidation of the Melk subcamp began in early April 1945. Following the evacuation, on 1 and 2 April, of subcamps located in eastern Lower Austria and in Vienna, Melk became the easternmost camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp complex. At that point, construction work at the site was halted. Around 500 prisoners were transferred to the Amstetten subcamp, which was still barely completed.

The complete evacuation of the camp took place in five transports between 11 and 15 April. The first convoy left Melk on 11 April 1945 by train for the main camp of Mauthausen, under the command of Hauptsturmführer Klein. It carried 1,500 prisoners, including patients from the infirmary as well as children and adolescents who had arrived from Auschwitz in late January. Fifteen prisoners died during this transport.

During the second convoy, 2,402 prisoners were loaded onto barges at the port of Melk and transported down the Danube to Linz. They were then forced to march on foot to Ebensee, which they reached on 20 April. Twenty-one prisoners died en route and sixteen managed to escape. On the same day, a third convoy of 2,000 prisoners departed by train and arrived at Ebensee the following day, with no deaths or escapes reported.

Two days later, a fourth convoy of 1,444 prisoners left Melk by train and reached Ebensee on 17 April; twenty-five prisoners escaped, and no deaths were recorded. The fifth and final convoy consisted of 55 prisoners, transported by trucks or horse-drawn vehicles, all of whom reached their destination safely.

Originally, there were plans to force all remaining prisoners into the “Quarz” tunnel system and then destroy it by explosion. Although blasting chambers had been prepared for this purpose, the plan was not carried out. According to Jean Varnoux, it is likely that the Luftwaffe physician Josef Sora persuaded the camp authorities to abandon this project. All prisoners deemed unfit for transport were “sprayed” in the “concentration camp infirmary” by an SS medical unit—that is, murdered by injection of poison directly into the heart. It is assumed that most of the prisoners transferred to Mauthausen died in gas chambers in the region. Some prisoners sent to Ebensee, however, survived long enough to witness their liberation by American troops on 6 May 1945. The Melk concentration camp itself was reached by the Red Army two days later, on 8 May 1945, completely deserted.

Memorial

As early as 1946, the former Melk crematorium was converted into a place of remembrance for survivors and for the families of the camp's victims. Separated from the former camp site in 1950, it was granted the status of a public monument in 1962 and officially inaugurated in March 1963.

Administered by the Mauthausen Memorial, the site aims to preserve the memory of the Melk camp, to honour its victims, and to recall the responsibility of the perpetrators and witnesses, while fostering historical reflection for the present and the future. The memorial is open free of charge to individual visitors in the former crematorium, located at Schießstattweg 2 in Melk.

The Appellplatz has retained its original appearance, but the camp barracks have completely disappeared. Of the Roggendorf construction site, only a few traces remain, including a mound of sand recalling the clearing of the tunnels carried out by the prisoners. The six main tunnels, as well as the hundreds of metres of galleries dug into the sandy hills of the Wachberg, are today difficult to access, as their entrances have been sealed.

The Birago Barracks are now used by the Austrian Armed Forces. The barracks are named after the military engineer Karl von Birago and house the 3rd Engineer Battalion of the Austrian Armed Forces.

Further reading

• Christian Bernadac, Déportation, vol. 3: Le neuvième cercle, ch. 5: Melk. Testimonies of René Gille, Robert Monin, Raymond Hallery, André Laithier, André Ulmann, Pierre Pradalès. France Empire, 1993.
• Jean-Claude Dumoulin, Du côté des vainqueurs. Éditions Tirésias, 1999.
• Gordon J. Horwitz, Mauthausen, ville d’Autriche, ch. 5: Autour du monastère. Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1992.
• Adeline Lee, Les Français de Mauthausen, Par-delà la foule de leurs noms. Paris: Tallandier, 2021. 736 pp. ISBN 979-1-021-04791-4.
• Bertrand Perz, Projekt Quarz, Steyr-Daimler-Puch und das Konzentrationslager Melk. Vienna: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1991.
• Daniel Piquée-Audrain, "Mauthausen, plus jamais ça !". campmauthausen.org (in French). Retrieved 2026-01-29. Mauthausen, plus jamais ça. 22 pen drawings. Amicale de Mauthausen, Paris, 1967.
• André Ulmann, Souvenir de voyage, Europe, June 1946; reprinted in Poèmes du camp. Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee. Paris: Julliard, 1969.
• Pierre Saint-Macary, Mauthausen: percer l’oubli. Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee. Paris: L’Harmattan, “Mémoires du XXe siècle”, 2004.
• Jean Varnoux, Général Pierre Saint-Macary (September 1995). "À la mémoire de Jean Varnoux" (PDF). Bulletin intérieur de l’Amicale des Déportés et Familles de Mauthausen (264): 2. Clartés dans la nuit: La Résistance de l’Esprit. Journal d’un prêtre déporté.