Melk concentration camp
sub-camp of Mauthausen concentration camp (1944-1945)

Melk concentration camp (also called Melk labor camp and KZ Melk, A.K.Me.) was a forced labor unit for men in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Mauthausen, Upper Austria. Prisoners there were forced to construct an underground ball-bearing factory for the Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG company. Prisoners were also constructed various barracks in the region and the "Luftwaffe colony" in Loosdorf. Other prisoners were forced to work at the Hopferwieser ST & A Sawmill (now Umdasch) in Amstetten, which produced pit props for underground installations. The camp was established on January 11, 1944. Approximately 14,390 prisoners were transported to Melk, where at least 4,896 perished. The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945.
In January 1944, a Kommando of Mauthausen concentration camp was established in Melk, Lower Austria, in the former abandoned barracks of the Wehrmacht pioneers Freiherr von Birago, then located in the Reichsgau Niederdonau, about 100 km east of Linz. An initial detachment of approximately 500 prisoners arrived on April 11, 1944, to prepare the facilities for up to 7,000 inmates. The camp officially opened on April 20 and 21, 1944.
The public source identifies “Melk concentration camp” as sub-camp of Mauthausen concentration camp (1944-1945). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Melk, concentration and camp.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1719398. VIAF identifies the subject as 143374906. The Library of Congress control number is no97028754. Authority coordinates are 48.221, 15.324. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melk concentration camp” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.