Kaufering concentration camp complex

Background

Kaufering (German pronunciation: [ˈkaʊfəʁɪŋ]) was a system of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp which operated between 18 June 1944 and 27 April 1945 and which were located around the towns of Landsberg am Lech and Kaufering in Bavaria. Previously, Nazi Germany had deported all Jews from the Reich, but having exhausted other sources of labor, Jews were deported to Kaufering to create three massive underground bunkers, Weingut II, Diana II, and Walnuss II, which would not be vulnerable to the Allied bombing which had devastated German aircraft factories. The bunkers were intended for the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 aircraft, but none were produced at the camps before the United States Army captured the area. Kaufering was the largest of the Dachau subcamps and also the one with the worst conditions; about half of the 30,000 prisoners died from hunger, disease, executions, or during the death marches. Most of the sites were not preserved and have been repurposed for other uses.

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