Ebensee

Ebensee - darkometer rating : 7 - In Ebensee there was one of the most significant satellite camps of the Nazi Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during the final years of WWII . While virtually nothing remains of the camp as such today, part of the arms-production tunnel system dug into the mountain by camp inmates has been made accessible to visitors. This makes the site a uniquely significant dark attraction in Austria . > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: Ebensee camp, one of the many satellite camps of Austria 's main concentration camp Mauthausen , was set up towards the end of 1943 in the woods near the town of the same name in the Salzkammergut region in Upper Austria, in the foothills of the Alps, some 40 miles (60 km) east of Salzburg. At the height of its operation up to 18,000 inmates were housed in the camp. Given the harsh working and living conditions and brutal treatment of the inmates, the death toll at Ebensee was particularly high. At first, the dead were sent back to Mauthausen to be cremated there, later a crematorium was built at Ebensee to deal with the piles of corpses there and then. The main purpose of the camp at Ebensee was the digging of tunnels into the mountainside which were to become underground production facilities of Nazi Germany 's arms industry, which was increasingly being threatened by Allied air raids. (See also Mittelbau-Dora ). In addition to housing a refinery and facilities for the assembly of engines and parts for fighter planes and tanks, the tunnels at Ebensee were to serve as a production site for missiles, especially the infamous A4, better known as " V2 ". Apparently there were also plans to have the ambitious ICBM "Aggregat 9" built here too.