KZ GUSEN MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
within ARBEITSKREIS FUER HEIMAT-, DENKMAL- UND GESCHICHTSPFLEGE
and Local-International Platform ST. GEORGEN/GUSEN, Austria
KZ Mauthausen-GUSEN Info-Page
Louis Haefliger & Albert Kosiek
Both men have to be mentioned in connection the liberation of the KZ Mauthausen and KZ Gusen Concentration Camps because both risked their lives and careers for the liberation of some 40.000 inmates in the camps in May 1945.
Louis Haefliger
A bank-clerk from Zurich, Switzerland. He volunteered in 1945 to guide a convoy of 19 trucks of the International Red Cross Comittee with food to the KZ Mauthausen Camps. When Haefliger arrived a few days prior to the liberation at KZ Mauthausen Camp on April 28, 1945 the commander of that camp, SS-Standartenfuehrer Ziereis, disallowed him to distribute that food to the prisoners. But Haefliger did not give up. He went back to nearby St.Georgen/Gusen and asked Ziereis to contact Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
At St.Georgen/Gusen, Haefliger learnt from local people about the crimes
and real situation in the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps. He
became committed to do more for the inmates than just bring the food-stuff.
By the time Haefliger returned to KZ Mauthausen central camp on April 30, 1945, and
Ziereis had contacted Kaltenbrunner, Haefliger was offered accomodation with
SS-OStuf Reimer, the chief of the KZ Mauthausen counter intelligence.
Since this high-ranking SS-man was also a bank-clark in civil life, he
and Haefliger had a good rapport and therefore Reimer told Haefliger
on May 2, 1945 about the secret plans of mass-extermination by blowing up the inmates
and the local population in the KZ Gusen I & II underground installations.
Hearing these secret plans of Pohl and Himmler to be carried out in the last days of the
KZ Mauthausen-Gusen camp history, Haefliger decided to do all he could to prevent this tragedy.
He overstepped the bounds of his duties as a Red Cross official and started to influence
the war-scenario actively by bringing in Allied troops as soon as possible
to the two concentration camps.
On May 4, 1945, with the help of Reimer, he painted one SS-car white so at to appear to be
a Red Cross vehicle and organized a Red Cross flag.
So, Haefliger, Reimer and one driver started in the early morning of May 5, 1945
to search for Allied troops in the surroundings.
With the help of Mr. Aschenbrenner, the vice-mayor of neighbouring
St.Georgen/Gusen they reached the valley of the "Gusen" river
north of St.Georgen where they saw the platoon of S/Sgt. Albert J. Kosiek ...
S/Sgt. Albert J. Kosiek
When Kosiek and his 23 men first saw that white Red Cross car with Haefliger and the white flag accompanied by an SS-man, they assumed it was an SS trap. But Haefliger was able to convince Kosiek to follow them to liberate the 40.000 inmates of KZ Mauthausen-Gusen Complex (some 25.000 at Gusen and some 12.000 at Mauthausen). And so, Kosiek overstepped the bounds of his duties as well and followed Haefliger to St.Georgen, Gusen and Mauthausen. In fact all of them risked their lives by doing so. Haefliger and Reimer might have been shot by the US troops in any case and Al Kosiek and his 23 men might well have been shot by any SS troops in the surrounding area. But nearly all went O.K. on this day as you can read in the personal report of Al Kosiek. At first they liberated some 12.000 inmates of KZ Mauthausen Central Camp without any fighting and some 25.000 inmates at the KZ Gusen I & II Camps later on.
While the liberation of Mauthausen was a peaceful one, the liberation
of the KZ Gusen Camps was not as successful.
At KZ Mauthausen Central Camp an internal prisoners committee took over
power after liberation. But not so at the KZ Gusen Camps. Here, a very
brutal excess of lynchings broke out between the inmates and some 500
of them were killed at the day of liberation by other inmates.
There had been many very brutal Kapos at the KZ Gusen without any future
prospects and therefore heavy fighting broke out. Some of these Kapos
hid themselves in the surroundings of the KZ Gusen camps and terrorized
the local population for several weeks after the liberation. It took the
U.S. troops several weeks to capture some 150 of them to bring them back
to the KZ Gusen I camp at the end of May 1945.
Furthermore the conditions were so bad in the KZ Gusen II camp that some 2000 inmates
died in the weeks after liberation (Father Jacques is just one example).
Information credit:
- Comitee International de la Croix Rouge, Die Tätigkeit des IKRK zugunsten
der in deutschen Konzentrationslagern inhaftierten Zivilpersonen (1939-1946), Genf 1985
- Matt Alphons, Einer aus dem Dunkel - Die Befreiung ..., Zürich 1988
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