This camp appears to have been an SS Mountain House where concentration camp inmates were experimented on. The purpose of these experiments was to have people live in igloos and to test various types of diet and clothing.

 

A medical case transcript preserved by the Nuremberg Trials Project at Harvard Law School Library states that in the late fall of 1942, SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Dr Sigmund Rascher, who was executed in 1945 for his freezing experiments on live prisoners at Dachau, "asked for permission to carry out tests on habituation to cold at the Medical Research Station for Mountain Troops at St. Johann and at the SS Mountain House in Bayrischzell where concentration camp inmates would be available for experiments. The purpose of these experiments was to have people live in igloos and to test various types of diet and clothing."

 

From 1938 to 1945 the mountain house at Bayrischzell served as a holiday complex for the SS. The entrance road and buildings were constructed by prisoners brought from Dachau. Until 1940 they were transported here by buses but from that year on to 1945 they were accommodated in a satellite camp. The main building of this complex is now used as a youth hostel, upon the wall of which a plaque has been fixed which reminds visitors of the horrific activities conducted here in the past (See Traces of War for further information).

 

According to the International Tracing Service, ten male prisoners worked in the camp for an SS hospital (See US Holocaust Memorial Museum)