Mauthausen

Mauthausen Immediately after Austria's "anschluss" to the German Reich in March 1938, Heinrich Himmler (Reichsführer-SS and chief of the German Police) and Oswald Pohl (chief of the SS-Administration Office, later SS-Main Administration Office for Economic Affairs) set off for Mauthausen and Gusen in order to inspect the quarries there. On April 29, 1938, the "Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH" (DEST) was founded in Berlin, and Oswald Pohl was assigned the task of organizing, financing and managing the company. End of May 1938, Oswald Pohl inspected the site for a second time with a view to setting up the concentration camp there. On June 30, 1938, first negotiations for the supply of building material for a period of ten years were started between Albert Speer, the "Führer's Architect" and "General Buildings Inspector for the Remodeling of the Capital of the German Reich, Berlin", and DEST-company (Deutsche Erd- und 1938, first, camp, quarries, prisoner, pohl, oswald, german, dest, wiener, und, steinwerke, ss, speer, reich, prisoners, office, mauthausen, leased, later, graben, gmbh, erd, deutsche, dachau, concentration, chief, buildings, berlin, august, albert, accompanied, 18, years, while, walls