| Original caption: “Rows of bodies of dead inmates fill the yard of Lager Nordhausen, a Gestapo concentration camp. This photo shows less than half of the bodies of the several hundred inmates who died of starvation or were shot by Gestapo men.” Konzentrationslager Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour from many Eastern countries occupied by Germany (including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps), for extending the nearby tunnels in the Kohnstein and for manufacturing the V-2 rocket and the V-1 flying bomb. In the summer of 1944, Mittelbau became an independent concentration camp with numerous subcamps of its own. KZ Mittelbau became operational on November 1, 1944 with 32,471 prisoners. There were thirty-one subcamps that surrounded the town of Nordhausen that supplied slave labor to build “Vengeance” weapons. In 1945, most of the surviving inmates were sent on death marches or crammed in trains of box-cars by the Schutzstaffel (SS). On April 11, 1945, American troops freed the remaining prisoners. The inmates at Dora-Mittelbau were treated in a brutal and inhumane manner, working 14-hour days and being denied access to basic hygiene, beds, and adequate rations. Around 1 in 3 of the roughly 60,000 prisoners who were sent to Dora-Mittelbau died. Today, the site hosts a memorial and museum. | |
| Image Filename | wwii2134.jpg |
| Image Size | 895.01 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2928 x 2304 |
| Photographer | James E. Myers |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 12, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager-Außenlager Boelcke-Kaserne |
| City | Nordhausen |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-111-SC-203456 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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