Access to the concentration camp memorial: fence damaged – police are investigating!

Access to the concentration camp memorial: fence damaged – police are investigating!

There was recently an alarming incident in Mühldorf am Inn: unknown persons gained unauthorized access to the memorial site of the Mühldorf subcamp complex. The fence of the bunker complex in Mühldorfer Hart was damaged in several places, which the police discovered during a patrol on October 14, 2025. This incident happened in a sensitive area that is not only a listed building, but has now also been transferred to the Bavarian Memorials Foundation, which assumed responsibility on October 1, 2025. The foundation urgently appeals for the necessary respect towards the victims and warned of the dangers that could arise from the blown-up bunker.

The fact that the site is currently inaccessible is due to ongoing archaeological and structural investigations. These are necessary in order to properly record and preserve the traces of a dark past. Between the summer of 1944 and April 1945, over 8,000 prisoners were forced to do forced labor under catastrophic conditions in the region while they helped build a semi-underground bunker for the production of fighter aircraft. It is estimated that around half of these prisoners died due to the inhumane conditions.

The sad history of the camp complex

The Mühldorf subcamp complex was one of the largest groups of subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp that were built in the summer of 1944. In addition to Mühldorf, the Kaufering and Munich-Allach camps were also part of the forced labor system. Over the years, the prisoners were mainly used in agriculture and construction. A particularly relevant project was the Weingut I armaments bunker, in which concentration camp prisoners, often Jews from Hungary, made up half of the workforce.

Estimates of the number of prisoners vary, while in the Mühldorf trial the number of around 8,300 prisoners between July 1944 and April 1945 was mentioned. Around 4,000 prisoners are said not to have survived. The camp commander Walter Adolf Langleist led the camp until the end of the war. With the withdrawal of German troops in mid-April 1945, the prisoners were moved to larger camps and finally transported away in freight wagons. The Americans reached the camps on May 1, 1945, resulting in the liberation of the survivors.

Former memorials and today's challenges

After the war, the memorial for the victims of the concentration camp subcamp complex was opened on April 27, 2018. There are a total of four concentration camp cemeteries in the Mühldorf area where the dead were buried after the war. The trials against those responsible were followed by verdicts that, among other things, led to Langleist's execution. Since then, the Bavarian Memorials Foundation has taken on the important task of keeping the memory of these crimes of National Socialism alive.

Criminal charges have now been filed against the perpetrators responsible for the incident in Mühldorf. Police are appealing for information to shed light on this act of disrespect to history and the victims. In the face of such incidents, society must stand together all the more to protect and preserve the memory of the past so that such atrocities do not occur again.

For more information on this shocking incident and the history of the Mühldorf subcamp complex, take a look Innsalzach24 and the detailed information Wikipedia.