Memorial mine gallery of the former concentration camp Ebensee

Memorial tunnel with permanent exhibition on the Nazi regime's plans at the time to establish underground arms production in Ebensee

Ebensee Concentration Camp Memorial – From Oblivion to Remembrance

In the heart of Upper Austria's Salzkammergut region, the Nazi regime planned to build a huge underground armaments project, which involved relocating the Peenemünde rocket research centre from northern Germany to bomb-proof tunnels. Due to the acute labour shortage during the Second World War, these were to be built through the mass deployment of concentration camp prisoners. From 18 November 1943 to 6 May 1945, around 8,500 people lost their lives in the Ebensee satellite camp, which was operated under the code name ‘Zement’ (cement), as a result of these insane plans.

Starting in the winter of 1943/44, approximately 7 kilometres of tunnels were constructed at great technical expense and with the labour of thousands of concentration camp prisoners at the Hatschek quarry, which had been in operation since 1909, and near the concentration camp. Contrary to the original plan, rockets were never produced in the underground facilities. Instead, the Nazis built an oil refinery in Facility A (quarry) using stolen French parts. Although the US military authorities had demanded that it be returned to France, the refinery (‘Dachs II’) continued to operate until 1947 and was then shut down due to a shortage of crude oil. Without achieving any significant profitability, another attempt at production was made in 1949 before it was finally shut down in 1952.

The Salzkammergutzeitung newspaper reported in its editions of 27 March and 24 April 1952:

"The dismantling of the oil refinery has been completed. The plant was relocated to Algiers, and some of the workers also went to Africa. The plant continued to operate for some time after the war, was then transferred to the trusteeship of the Republic of Austria and finally purchased by a French company. (...) After the Dachs II oil plant had been dismantled, the sister plant ‘Iltis’ (aviation fuel refinery) was also removed by the Zehentner company. Parts of the plant had been lying on a meadow on the left bank of the Traun River next to Ischlerstraße in Langwies near the tunnel in Wimmersberg, which was to be built for this purpose, since 1945.

The tunnels are still partially preserved today. Plant A is used industrially by the Hatschek company. In facility B (Finkerleiten settlement), the memorial tunnel houses a permanent exhibition organised by the Contemporary History Museum Association.

The concentration camp cemetery, which has been an international memorial site since 1948 with its numerous monuments, commemorates this tragedy and is the venue for an international memorial service every May. The concentration camp memorial tunnel is the only one of the seven tunnel entrances of Plant B that is accessible today. Since 1997, tunnel no. 5 has housed a documentary exhibition on the history of the Ebensee concentration camp.