Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp was the hub of a large group of
Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of
Mauthausen and
Sankt Georgen an der Gusen (Gusen) in
Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of
Linz. The camp operated from the time of the
Anschluss, when Austria was annexed into the German
Third Reich in early 1938, to the beginning of May 1945, at the end of the
Second World War. Starting with a single camp at Mauthausen, the complex expanded over time and by the summer of 1940 Mauthausen had become one of the largest
labour camp complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe, with four main
subcamps at Mauthausen and nearby Gusen, and
nearly 100 other subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany, directed from a central office at Mauthausen.