As Allied forces stormed Normandy in June 1944, Nazi Germany unleashed a new horror on London – the V-1 flying bombs and later the V-2 rockets. These so-called "revenge weapons" were built using slave labor inside the hellish underground tunnels of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, where tens of thousands of prisoners died from starvation, torture, executions, and exhaustion. The camp’s commandant, SS officer Otto Förschner, oversaw this brutal system of exploitation and death before moving on to command the infamous Kaufering camp complex. After the war, he was tried for war crimes at the Dachau Trials and sentenced to death for his role in mass murder and the torment of prisoners under his command.
Up Next in Season 1
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Cold-Blooded: Max Koegel and the Camp...
After the German defeat at Stalingrad shattered Hitler’s dreams of conquest, the war turned into a brutal retreat—but the suffering in the Nazi camps only intensified. Max Koegel, an ambitious SS officer, rose from humble origins to command some of the deadliest camps in history, including Majdan...
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Commandant of Cruelty: Hermann Florst...
In the shadow of Nazi Germany’s collapse, the crimes of the concentration camp system come to light. Among the perpetrators stands Hermann Florstedt—SS officer, camp commandant, and one of the most feared figures in Majdanek. Once described as “tough and energetic” by his superiors, Florstedt’s a...
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Theresienstadt’s Illusion and Death: ...
In November 1941, Reinhard Heydrich establishes the Theresienstadt Ghetto — a fortress town turned into a façade of “model Jewish life” that hides the machinery of extermination. Behind this cruel deception stands Siegfried Seidl, the camp’s first commandant, whose cold efficiency and brutality c...
