View source for German Earth and Stone Works

{{Short description|German SS company during WWII}}
{{Redirect|DEST|other uses|Dest (disambiguation){{!}}Dest}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 192-269, KZ Mauthausen, Häftlinge im Steinbruch.jpg|thumb|right|[[Wiener Graben]] quarry at [[Mauthausen concentration camp|Mauthausen]]: the "Stairs of Death"; prisoners were forced to carry granite blocks, some weighing up to {{cvt|50|kg|lb|-1}} up 186 steps.]]
'''German Earth and Stone Works''' ({{langx|de|Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH}}, {{abbr|DEST}}) was an [[SS]]-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in [[Nazi Germany]]. DEST was a subsidiary company  of ''Amtsgruppe W'' (''Amt. W'') of [[SS Main Economic and Administrative Office]] (WVHA). Both ''Amt. W'' and the WVHA were headed by [[Waffen-SS]] generals [[Oswald Pohl]]  and [[Georg Lörner]].

The headquarters for DEST were located in [[Sankt Georgen an der Gusen]], a small town in [[Austria]] where Gusen II, a subcamp of Mauthausen, was built in 1944.<ref>St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen – ''Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered''. BoD, Norderstedt 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-8334-7610-5}}</ref><ref>Business and industry in Nazi Germany By [[Francis R. Nicosia]], Jonathan Huener Publisher: Berghahn Books; illustrated edition (March 2004); {{ISBN|1-57181-654-2}}, {{ISBN|978-1-57181-654-2}}.</ref><ref>United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT). NMT 4 U.S.A. vs. Pohl ''Et.'' ''Al.'' Harvard Law School Library, Nuremberg Trials Project.[http://www.nuremberg.law.harvard.edu] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100301181535/http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/ |date=2010-03-01 }}</ref>

==History==
''DEST'', founded on April 29, 1938, in [[Berlin]], was administered by the ''WHVA'' for the purpose of procuring building materials and organizing slave labor and overseeing quarry operations.
The [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]] (1936), [[Buchenwald]] (1937), [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]] (1938), [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]] (1938), [[Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp|Natzweiler-Struthof]] (1939), [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp|Gross Rosen]] (1940) and [[Neuengamme concentration camp|Neuengamme]] (1940) concentration camp sites were chosen because of their proximity to soil suitable for making bricks, or due to the close proximity of a brickworks factory or stone quarry. 
 
''DEST'' was widely successful in the exploitation of slave labor, most of whom were Jews, in the quarries. Human labor was used cruelly, becoming one of the main tenets of [[war crime]] charges in the [[Nuremberg Trials]]. The director of the program, ''SS-Obergruppenführer'' [[Oswald Pohl]], who was stationed in Berlin, was sentenced to death for war crimes in 1947 in Nuremberg, and executed in 1951.

In 1943, ''DEST'' changed its focus from stone industry to armaments. From this time the organization played a key role, helping the SS to enter some key war industries. This was underlined by its industrial park at [[Sankt Georgen an der Gusen|St. Georgen]] and [[Gusen concentration camp|Gusen]] that made the SS a key supplier of aircraft fuselages ([[Messerschmitt Bf 109|Bf 109]], [[Messerschmitt Me 262|Me 262]]), carbines and machine guns to companies like [[Messerschmitt|BFW]], [[Messerschmitt]] and [[Steyr-Daimler-Puch]]. To run its business with the inmates of the Gusen and Mauthausen concentration camps, ''DEST'' operated its headquarters of ''[[Granitwerke Mauthausen]]'' between 1940 and 1945 in the town of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen which was its biggest and most important "Werkgruppe" (industry group).<ref>St. Georgen – Gusen – Mauthausen: Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered By Rudolf Language: English {{ISBN|3-8334-7610-9}} {{ISBN|978-3-8334-7610-5}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.gusen.org/gudest1x.htm The St. Georgen/Gusen headquarters of Granitwerke Mauthausen]

{{KZ}}
{{The Holocaust}}
{{SS organizations}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Defunct companies of Germany]]
[[Category:Companies of Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in Austria]]
[[Category:1938 establishments in Germany]]
[[Category:Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1938]]
[[Category:Companies involved in the Holocaust]]
[[Category:SS Main Economic and Administrative Office]]