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Forgotten Horrors

The Nazi sub-camp system

Mettenheim - Muhldorf complex

Mettenheim - Muhldorf complex

Mettenheim GE.JPG

Metenheim Camp is not included on the list of Dachau sub-camps featured on Wikipedia and that is because it was part of the Muhldorf complex of camps, which included the Weingutt I factory complex in the forest of the Muhldorfer Hart.

The information presented here, along with the accompanying photos, has been sourced mainly from the website of the KZ memorial Mühldorfer Hart, operated by the holocaust memorial association "For Remembering". This association is particularly committed to the memory of the victims of the Nazi regime at Mühldorf Hart concentration camp and the website contains a huge wealth of information about this particular camp, along with many more photos. The text of the website is in German throughout (you can run it through Google Translate fairly effectively though) but there is an English section as well.

 

Mettenheim itself was situated north of the Ampfing to Mettenheim Road. It consisted of around 20 barracks erected on concrete slabs. Also on the site was a kitchen, medical room, washrooms, a mortuary and a mechanic's workshop. The SS guards were accommodated in four barracks and there was an Organisation Todt facility located next to a farmyard. A water storage facility was also located in this part of the camp. A railway line branched off from the main railway line to the south of the camp and ran along the camp's Northern perimeter. Next to this was a small Luftwaffe airfield (which can be seen clearly in the aerial reconnaissance photo below). The site had previously served as a material warehouse for the Luftwaffe. There was a gravel pit nearby which is still operating today.

 

The camp was commanded by Sebastian Eberle who was posted to Mettenheim from Dachau. Although Eberle was questioned after the war, he was not convicted of any crimes. However, another SS officer, by the name of Schallermair, was sentenced to death by hanging due to his aggressive attitude to the prisoners, which included several incidents in which he set his dogs on them.

It was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence and was defended against air attack by a light FLAK battery. A total of 2500 prisoners were confined in the camp, 150-200 people per barrack, sleeping in three tier bunks. 

Within the forest of the Muhldorfer Hart, there were at least three forced labour camps, serving the Weingut I munitions factory, the concrete remains of which can be seen to this day. A massed grave was located on the western side of the forest. This was exhumed in 1945 by the allies and the bodies reburied in nearby cemeteries. A second OT facility was situated on the North-Eastern side of the forest, near the outskirts of the town of Muhldorf. 

More than 8,000 forced labourers worked in the forest factory from July 1944 to 28th April 1945, when the complex was liberated by American troops. Most of the labourers were Jewish Hungarians and up to 47 percent of them did not survive the war. There was also a women's camp, containing 200 female prisoners who provided washing and cleaning services for the SS guards but who were also used for construction work. The women's camp was located next to the forest camp's perimeter fence.

 

Mettenheim itself had a series of smaller sub-camps, in Mittergars, Thalham (in the district of Obertaufkirchen) and Zangberg. Mittergars was in the district of  Krücklham, near the Mühldorf-Rosenheim railway line on the road to Grafengars. The camp initially consisted of tents, but 34 small, low wooden shacks were built to house 300 prisoners, surrounded by a barbed wire fence with a watchtower on the street. SS barracks were located in the woods and a mass grave was dug to dispose of the dead in the forest. Some traces of this camp can still be seen in the ground.

Food rations served to the prisoners consisted of a kind of malted coffee with bread in the morning and watery soup with scraps of meat and vegetables.

Mettenheim I.JPG
Mettenheim map.JPG
Muhldorfer Hart factory complex remains.
Mettenheim bunks.JPG

(Above) photo inside one of the barracks at Mettenheim, taken by the American Army after the camp was liberated.

(Left below) After the war, the barracks were used to accommodate refugees. (Right) exterior view of one of the barracks

Mettenheim bunks 2.JPG
Mettenheim 3.JPG
Mettenheim barbed wire fence.JPG
Mettenheim forest camp.JPG

(Left) One of the forest camps, utilising Finnish or Swedish tents, constructed from plywood boards.

(Left) These huts were heated, but they were also sunk halfway into the ground, rather like some of the huts in the Kaufering complex.

Earthen huts.JPG
Earthen huts 2.JPG
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