German Earth and Stone Works

Wiener Graben quarry at Mauthausen: the "Stairs of Death"; prisoners were forced to carry granite blocks, some weighing up to 50 kg (110 lb) up 186 steps.

German Earth and Stone Works (German: Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH, DEST) was an SS-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. DEST was a subsidiary company of Amtsgruppe W (Amt. W) of SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA). Both Amt. W and the WVHA were headed by Waffen-SS generals Oswald Pohl and Georg Lörner.

The headquarters for DEST were located in Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, a small town in Austria where Gusen II, a subcamp of Mauthausen, was built in 1944.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen – Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered. BoD, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-7610-5
  2. ^ Business and industry in Nazi Germany By Francis R. Nicosia, Jonathan Huener Publisher: Berghahn Books; illustrated edition (March 2004); ISBN 1-57181-654-2, ISBN 978-1-57181-654-2.
  3. ^ United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT). NMT 4 U.S.A. vs. Pohl Et. Al. Harvard Law School Library, Nuremberg Trials Project.[1] Archived 2010-03-01 at the Wayback Machine