From The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945
The first person to take a scholarly interest in the Mittelbau camp was a native of the Nordhausen region, Manfred Bornemann. His article with Martin Broszat, "Das KL Dora-Mittelbau," Martin Broszat (ed.), Studien zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags-Anstalt 1970), 154-98; and his book, Geheimprojekt Mittelbau (1971; repr., Bonn: Bernhard & Graefe, 1994), focus on the underground plant, V-2 production, and Dora, the primary emphasis of most historians until recently.
The literature on the rocket program is large; see especially Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich (New York: The Free Press, 1995), which was translated as Die Rakete und das Reich. For V-1 production in the Mittelwerk, see the relevant sections in Hans Mommsen and Manfred Grieger, Das Volkswagenwerk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf: ECON, 1996).
Recently discovered, stunning color photographs of the underground plant, and French prisoner art from Dora, are featured in the exhibition catalog of Yves Le Maner and André Sellier, Images de Dora 1943-1945 (St. Omer: La Coupole, 1999), which has appeared in translation as Bilder aus Dora.
Recently three new histories of the camp and camp system have ushered in a new era of scholarly work on Mittelbau. Joachim Neander's Das Konzentrationslager "Mittelbau" in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur (Clausthal-Zellerfeld: Papierflieger, 1997) is strongest for the evacuation of the camps. A French survivor of Mittelbau-Dora, André Sellier, has published Histoire du camp de Dora (Paris: Éditions la découverte, 1998), translated as Zwangsarbeit im Raketentunnel, which emphasizes the experience of French workers in the Mittelwerk. In English it is available as A History of the Dora Camp, trans. Steven Wright and Susan Taponier, foreword by Michael J. Neufeld, afterword by Jens-Christian Wagner (Chicago: Irving R. Dee, published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2003).
But the standard scholarly work on the camp is that of Jens-Christian Wagner, Produktion des Todes: Das Kz Mittelbau-Dora (Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag, 2001), which is superbly researched and for the first time sets the whole Mittelbau camp system in balanced perspective. This book is based upon the author's dissertation, “Verlagerungswahn und Tod: Die Fiktion eines Rüstungszentrum und der KZ-Komplex Mittelbau-Dora 1943” (dissertation, Göttingen, 1999).
Only remnants of KL Mittelbau and Mittelwerk GmbH records survive, most notably in the BA-BL in RG NS 4 Anhang, but also in R 121, Industriebeteiligungsgesellschaft, which includes Mittelwerk GmbH, and R 125, Wifo. There are also Mittelbau-Dora records in the ThHStA-W, RG NS 4/Bu, in the Buchenwald records. For the Nordhausen trial at Dachau in 1947, see NARA, United States of America vs. Kurt Andrae, et. al., Microfilm Publication M-1079, 16 reels (originals in RG 238, NARA); and for the Essen trial of 1967-1970, NWHStA-D, Zweigarchiv Kalkum, Gerichte Rep. 299; duplicates of the latter are in the ZdL (now BA-L). Also useful are the Peenemünde correspondence with Mittelwerk GmbH, in the DMM, Peenemünde records, file GD 638.8.2, and ITS records on Buchenwald and Mittelbau in the YVA, Microfilms BD3-Bu19-44 and BD11-Do1-6.
Michael J. Neufeld, from The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, publication forthcoming)
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