The 'Parachutist Wall' of Mauthausen

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Does anyone actually seriously entertain testimony about this? Actually? In reality? People really believe that this happened?

I know the Hitler Youth used to do similar activities for team building and for training, but, they had a fireman's trampoline to decend onto. Nobody jumped to their death.

https://remember.org/camps/mauthausen/mau-quarry03

In 1941 a large group of Jews from the Netherlands were given “special treatment”.

They were made to slide down the loose stones on the side of the staircase. Many of them died in the effort.

The survivors were made to run up and down the steps with 25 kilo stones on their backs. Often the stones fell on feet and legs of those behind.

Those who lost the rock were brutally beaten.

For two days the SS drove the Jews up and down the steps. On the third day, driven by despair, the remaining Jews joined hands and leaped over the precipice tp their death in the quarry below.

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Apparently this was done, in front of Himmler?

https://codoh.com/library/document/the- ... ice-block/

Is this another legend, like Simon Wiesenthal's “parachutists”? In his book Denn sie wußten, was sie tun (For they knew what they did), Wiesenthal has, after all, captioned a drawing showing men being thrown from a cliff, as follows:[3]

“It was rare for Jews to be shot at Mauthausen. They were destined for the 'Wiener Graben' [a street in Vienna,. On a single day, March 31, 1943, 1000 Dutch Jews were thrown from a height of 50 meters before the very eyes of Heinrich Himmler. The SS called them 'parachutists.' The brown crowd was highly amused.”

[borjastick]

Apparently this was done, in front of Himmler?

https://codoh.com/library/document/the- ... ice-block/

Is this another legend, like Simon Wiesenthal's “parachutists”? In his book Denn sie wußten, was sie tun (For they knew what they did), Wiesenthal has, after all, captioned a drawing showing men being thrown from a cliff, as follows:[3]

“It was rare for Jews to be shot at Mauthausen. They were destined for the 'Wiener Graben' [a street in Vienna,. On a single day, March 31, 1943, 1000 Dutch Jews were thrown from a height of 50 meters before the very eyes of Heinrich Himmler. The SS called them 'parachutists.' The brown crowd was highly amused.”

It was all so believable until Wiesenthal's name crept into the story. Then I knew it was a bunch of lies. Actually none if it was credible and when his name came into it I knew. Wiesenthal was a classic post holocaust grifter shyster. Just like Elie Wiesel.

[Nessie]

A bit of research, to establish if there is any evidence to substantiate the claim.

https://www.jewishgen.org/forgottencamp ... eneng.html

"An eyewitness report from Olga Wormser can perhaps give a hint of the life in the quarries: " Eighty-seven Dutch Jews were sent to the quarries separated from all the other prisoners. There they encountered the effeminate SS men known as "Hans" and "The blond Damsel". These two with pick handles in hand flailed into this pathetic group who were digging in the mountainside. By eleven-thirty, 47 of the 87 lay dead on the ground. They were butchered, one after another, before the eyes of fellow prisoners helpless to do anything. That afternoon, four more were killed. They were taken to the cliff top and told to fight. When two dropped to the rocks below, the victors would go free. Two dropped, but the victors were immediately pushed to join them.""

An eyewitness to Dutch Jews dying by being pushed off the cliff, but not 1000 of them and not in front of Himmler. A similar, secondary sourced report here;

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/a ... ation-camp

"Saul Friedländer’s searing description of the story of the Dutch Jews taken into custody. These men “had to run up the 186 steps. In some instances the rocks immediately rolled downhill, crushing the feet of those that came behind. Every Jew who lost his rock in that fashion was brutally beaten, and the rock was hoisted onto his shoulders again.” The SS eagerly dispensed punishment to anyone exhibiting fatigue. During my trip, once I reached the bottom of the Stairway, I went to a pond underneath a very steep rock wall. Sharp rocks shot up through the water. A monument erected there described how the SS delighted in hurling these Jewish men off the top of this wall to their deaths. With their inimitable sense of humor, the guards nicknamed their victims Fallschirmspringer—parachutists."

Anything else I can find is purely secondary, with no source. I would rate the original claim by Wiesenthal as most likely atrocity rumour, with some basis in the truth.

[pilgrimofdark]

People really believe that this happened?

Well yeah. You'd expect at least some to believe the words written on the memorial in front of the "Parachutists Wall" at the Mauthausen Memorial.

Looks like the "Parachutists Wall" is on the backside of the "Stairway of Death."

It has an official memorial in German, French, and Russian.

Parachutists Wall

Hundreds of prisoners were thrown down this steep wall in the quarry. They either shattered at the foot of the wall or drowned in the deep pools of water. Often, prisoners also threw themselves off, unable to bear the pain any longer. The SS called these doomed prisoners "paratroopers" in a gruesome joke. The first group of Dutch Jews to arrive in Mauthausen in the summer of 1942 was hurled down this wall by the SS.

- Wall Memorial Plaques

At least a few believed enough to build a little shrine at the base of the memorial.

It has a 4.8 star rating on Google Maps. One person left a tip on how to get in without paying the entrance fee

The Stairway of Death

Reading the reviews, you can see what people believe about it after leaving the museum grounds.

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They were gassed though? Right?

https://codoh.com/library/document/more ... -the-mass/

In a previous article [1] I have discussed the monthly radio broadcasts in German that the famous novelist Thomas Mann made during the war and the mentions of mass gassings of Jews made in them. Most significantly, in his speech from January 1942 the Nobel laureate in exile claimed that “Four hundred young Dutch Jews were brought to Germany to be used as guinea pigs for poison gas”. As far as I was able to determine, this was the first occurence of the allegation that the Germans were carrying out mass gassings of Jews. In his speech from June 1942 Mann again spoke of the gassed Dutch Jews, stating that the victims numbered not 400, but 800, and that the Jews in question had been “brought to Mauthausen and gassed there”. Comparison of the contents of the January speech with a diary entry written on 16 February 1942 by a Romanian-Jewish Bucarest physician named Emil Dorian strongly implies that the allegation did not originate with Mann, and that it had been spread also by other channels.

Or were they worked to death?

I understand there is a plaque. Do we not look at what historians like Hilberg say about the fate of these persons though?

[Wetzelrad]

All of the unnamed witness reports mentioned above probably come through Jack H. Taylor, who, because he was a detainee in Mauthausen, was the first on-scene to collect atrocity reports. Among the many execution methods he described, he included, "beating men over a 150 foot cliff to the rocks below". Presumably this is the same cliff.

It should be remembered that Taylor was a member of the OSS, and the OSS was designed to produce and propagate false information. Later, Taylor worked for the prosecution at the war crimes trials, where the prosecution claimed 1.5-2 million dead at Mauthausen.

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The clip for posterity, shown at The Nuremberg Trial.



When the list of names of OSS operatives was released in the early 2000's, his name, along with many others involved in 'setting the narrative' was revealed.

[pilgrimofdark]

All of the unnamed witness reports mentioned above probably come through Jack H. Taylor, who, because he was a detainee in Mauthausen, was the first on-scene to collect atrocity reports. Among the many execution methods he described, he included, "beating men over a 150 foot cliff to the rocks below". Presumably this is the same cliff.

It should be remembered that Taylor was a member of the OSS, and the OSS was designed to produce and propagate false information. Later, Taylor worked for the prosecution at the war crimes trials, where the prosecution claimed 1.5-2 million dead at Mauthausen.

Taylor is referred to quite a bit in the book US Intelligence, the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials: Seeking Accountability for Genocide and Cultural Plunder, which spends many many pages examining the "art-looting aspect of the Holocaust" and the OSS's involvement in preparing for the Nuremberg trials. But this book is where I got a few of the below links.

The USHMM might also be relying on Taylor:

In 1941, an installation for shooting prisoners with a smallcaliber pistol was set up in a building just off the roll-call square. Prisoners accused of specific offenses were hanged or executed by firing squad. Those prisoners unable to work were killed by lethal injection of benzine or phenol to the heart. Prisoners were killed by poisonous gas in the gas chamber constructed in the crematorium building in late 1941, in the gas vans that carried victims to and from the Gusen sub-camp, or at Hartheim, a “euthanasia” center. Invalids, the chronically ill, and prisoners unable to work were selected by a team of physicians at Mauthausen and Gusen beginning in August 1941, part of the so-called Aktion 14f13. An additional killing program, Aktion K (K meaning Kugel, or bullet), included POWs who had attempted to escape and officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who were unable to work. They were to be sent to Mauthausen and executed shortly after their arrival.

- USHMM

The USHMM is silent about the "Stairs of Death" and the "Parachutists Wall."

Taylor's full affidavit is here:
World War II: The Dupont Mission (October 13, 1944 - May 5, 1945)


This old website of a Dachau Scrapbook also has some trial testimony from Taylor from the Mauthausen Trial (under Dachau Trials).

Gassing, hanging, shooting, beating. There was one particular group of Dutch Jews who were beaten until they jumped over the cliff into the stone quarry. Some that were not killed on the first fall were taken back up and thrown over to be sure. Then there was exposure. Any new transport coming in was forced to stand out in the open, regardless of the time of the year, practically naked. Other forms of killing included clubbing to death with axes or hammers and so forth, tearing to pieces by dogs specially trained for the purpose, injections into the heart and veins with magnesium chloride or benzene, whippings with a cow-tail to tear the flesh away, mashing in a concrete mixer, forcing them to drink a great quantity of water and jumping on the stomach while the prisoner was lying on his back, freezing half-naked in subzero temperatures, buried alive, red-hot poker down the throat. I remember a very prominent Czech general who was held down in the shower room and had a hose forced down his throat. He drowned that way.

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I'll add 'concrete mixer of death' to the catalog of 'insane holocaust tales'.

At some point, I intend to make a cartoon children's book with that title.