Flossenbürg concentration camp Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel ( SS ) Economic - Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg , in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria , Germany , near the border with Czechoslovakia . Until its liberation in April 1945 , more than 96 , 000 prisoners passed through the camp . About 30 , 000 died there . History . Pre – World War II . Before World War II , Flossenbürg was a men ' s camp primarily for " antisocial " or " criminal " prisoners . The camp ' s site was chosen so that the inmates could be used as slave labor to quarry the granite found in the nearby hills . The quarries belonged to the SS - owned and - operated German Earth and Stone Works ( DEST ) company . On March 24 , 1938 , SS authorities determined a site near the small town of Flossenbürg to be suitable for the establishment of a concentration camp due to its potential for extracting granite for construction purposes . During World War II . During World War II , most of the inmates sent to Flossenbürg , or to one of about 100 sub - camps , came from the German - occupied eastern territories . The inmates in Flossenbürg were housed in 16 huge wooden barracks , its crematorium was built in a valley straight outside the camp . In September 1939 , the SS transferred 1 , 000 political prisoners to Flossenbürg from Dachau . In 1941 to 1942 , about 1 , 500 Polish prisoners , mostly members of the Polish resistance , were deported to Flossenbürg . In July 1941 , SS guards shot 40 Polish prisoners at the SS firing range outside the Flossenbürg concentration camp . Between February and September 1941 the SS executed about one - third of the Polish political prisoners deported to Flossenbürg . During World War II , the German army turned tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners over to the SS for execution . More than 1 , 000 Soviet prisoners of war were executed in Flossenbürg by the end of 1941 . The SS also established a special camp for a load of Soviet prisoners of war within Flossenbürg . Executions of Soviet prisoners of war continued sporadically through 1944 . Soviet prisoners of war in Mülsen St . Micheln , a subcamp of Flossenbürg , staged an uprising and mass escape attempt on 1 May 1944 . They set their bunks on fire and killed some of the camp ' s Kapos , prisoner trustees who carried out SS orders . SS guards crushed the revolt and none of the prisoners escaped . Almost 200 prisoners died from burns and wounds sustained in the uprising . The SS transferred about 40 leaders of the revolt to Flossenbürg itself , where they were later executed in the camp jail . There were over 4 , 000 prisoners in the main camp of Flossenbürg in February 1943 . More than half of these prisoners were political prisoners ( mainly Soviet , Czech , Dutch , and German ) . Almost 800 were German criminals , more than 100 were homosexuals , and 7 were Jehovah ' s Witnesses . During the war , prisoner forced labor became increasingly important in German arms production . As a result , the Flossenbürg camp system expanded to include approximately 100 subcamps concentrated mainly around armaments industries in southern Germany and western Czechoslovakia . On 1 September 1944 , Flossenbürg became a training camp for extremely large numbers of female guards ( Aufseherin nen ) who were recruited by force from factories all over Germany and Poland . All together , over 500 women were trained in the camp and in time went on to its subcamps . Women matrons staffed the Flossenbürg subcamps , such as Dresden Ilke Werke , Freiberg , Helmbrechts , Holleischen , Leitmeritz , Mehltheuer , Neustadt ( near Coburg ) , Nürnberg - Siemens , Oederan , and Zwodau , and it is known that six SS women " ( SS - Helferinnenkorps ) " staffed the Gundelsdorf subcamp in Czechoslovakia . By 1945 , there were almost 40 , 000 inmates held in the whole Flossenbürg camp system , including almost 11 , 000 women . Inmates were made to work in the Flossenbürg camp quarry and in armaments making . Underfeeding , sickness , and overwork was rife among the inmates , and with the harshness of the guards , this treatment killed thousands of inmates . It is estimated that between April 1944 and April 1945 , more than 1500 death sentences were carried out there . To this end , six new gallows hooks were installed . In the last months the rate of daily executions overtook the capacity of the crematorium . As a solution , the SS began stacking the bodies in piles , drenching them with gasoline , and setting them alight . Incarcerated in what was called the " " Bunker " , " those who had been condemned to death were kept alone in dark rooms with no food for days until they were executed . Amongst the Allied military officers executed at Flossenbürg were Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) agent Gustave Daniel Alfred Biéler ( executed 6 September 1944 ) . As Germany ' s defeat loomed , a number of the SOE agents whom the SS had tortured repeatedly in order to extract information , were executed on the same day . On 29 March 1945 13 SOE agents were hanged , including Jack Charles Stanmore Agazarian and Brian Rafferty . Together with his deputy General Hans Oster , military jurist General Karl Sack , theologian Rev . Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Ludwig Gehre , Wilhelm Canaris was humiliated before witnesses and then executed on April 9 , 1945 . At the time of his execution , Canaris had been decorated with the Iron Cross First and Second Class , the Silver German Cross , the Cross of Honor and the Wehrmacht ' s Twelve and Twenty - Five Year Long - Service Ribbons . On 1 August 2007 a memorial was unveiled at Flossenbürg to the memory of the seven members of the German resistance who had conspired to assassinate Hitler and who were executed on April 9 , 1945 . Death march and liberation . In early April 1945 , as American forces were approaching the camp , the SS staged a perfunctory " trial " and executed General Hans Oster , Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , Rev . Dr . Dietrich Bonhoeffer , Dr . Karl Sack , Dr . Theodor Strünck and General Friedrich von Rabenau , who were involved in the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler or previous plots against Hitler , along with the French Resistance worker Simone Michel - Lévy , who had managed to organize an uprising in the camp . On 20 April 1945 , they began the forced evacuation of 22 , 000 inmates , including 1 , 700 Jews , leaving behind only those too sick to walk . On the death march to the Dachau concentration camp , SS guards shot any inmate too sick to keep up . Before they reached Dachau , more than 7 , 000 inmates had been shot or had collapsed and died . By the time the U . S . Army freed the camp on April 23 , 1945 , more than 30 , 000 inmates had died at Flossenbürg . Troops from the 2nd Cavalry Group , Mechanized , the 90th Infantry Division and the 97th Infantry Division found about 1 , 600 ill and weak prisoners , mostly in the camp ' s hospital barracks . Members of the army ' s Counter - Intelligence Corps , including Ib Melchior , Anthony Hecht and Robie Macauley , conducted extensive interviews with survivors to gather evidence for the 1946 Flossenbürg War Crimes Trial . Aftermath . Flossenbürg Trial . The Flossenbürg War Crimes Trial took place in Dachau , Germany , from June 12 , 1946 until January 22 , 1947 . An American military tribunal tried 46 former staff from Flossenbürg concentration camp for crimes of murder , torturing , and starving the inmates in their custody . All but 5 of the defendants were found guilty , 15 of whom were condemned to death , 11 were given life sentences , and 14 were jailed for terms of 1 to 30 years . Holocaust museum . On 22 July 2007 , the sixty - second anniversary of the camp ' s liberation , a Holocaust museum was opened at Flossenbürg . The ceremony was attended by 84 former inmates , in addition to the president of Ukraine , Viktor Yushchenko , whose father was among the camp ' s inmates during World War II for five months .