Luftwaffe guards at concentration camps

New arrivals are counted at Melk; the vast majority of guards at this Mauthausen-Gusen subcamp were Luftwaffe soldiers.

During World War II, the German Luftwaffe staffed dozens of concentration camps, and posted its soldiers as guards at many others. Camps created for the exploitation of forced labor for armaments production were often run by the branch of the Wehrmacht that used the products.[1] The Wehrmacht also posted about 10,000 soldiers to concentration camps because of a shortage of guards in mid-1944, including many from the Luftwaffe.[2]

  1. ^ USHMM 2009, p. 955.
  2. ^ Blatman 2011, p. 371.