Waffen-SS at Mauthausen, 1941

[stonemint]

Himmler, along with Wolff, Kaltenbrunner and many others toured Mauthausen in April 1941. The event was extensively photographed.
However, if you look closely, you will see that Himmler also invited along members of the LAH, DF and Deutschland.

This appears to be Klingenberg on the far left with the RK:

[stonemint]

Deutschland Oberfuhrer on far right:

[stonemint]

Better shot of Klingenberg. RKT on the far right--Lehmann?:

[stonemint]

Hausser in the middle:

[stonemint]

Otto Kumm of the DF to Himmler's right, as a Sturmbannfuhrer. Wolff in the middle, the Kommandant of Mauthausen is wearing the rare "K" tab:

[stonemint]

RKT second from right:

[stonemint]

RKT again:

[DeMil]

Superb detailed photos

DeMil

[stonemint]

Does anyone have any more info as to why the W-SS was at this event?

[Glowlight]

Thanks for posting the great pictures. I would agree it does look like Lehmann in the third picture you posted. Thanks for sharing.

[cary milligan]

Wow!

All those pretty hats!!! Thanks for sharing the pics!

Wish I could see a close up of the "K" tab you mention.........

Love to see even more pics.

Cheers

Cary

[Arran]

And its interesting to see one black uniform being worn among a sea of grey...

[N.C. Wyeth]

In this series of photographs from April 1941, some scenes are from inside KZ-Mauthausen, and some are from inside KZ-Gusen. It is during this visit that Himmler gave the order for construction of the brothel for prisoners, and for the order to begin the "Aktion 14 f 13" (part of the T-4 program). If you search through the entire series of photos from this visit, you will see the quarry at Mauthausen - and in some, you will recognize men in business attire - they are reputedly scoping out the KZ's for slave-labor. If you make the effort to look past the uniforms, you will catch glimpses of some of the inmates . . .

There is much more that has been recorded about this visit . . .

[Robert H]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtop...?f=38&t=147131

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/...anguage=german

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.ph...6&MediaId=2386

[N.C. Wyeth]

Does anyone have any more info as to why the W-SS was at this event?

Kind of brings up that age-old question again - was it really part of the much larger program they signed up for, or not?