DEST

DEST, (an acronym of German: Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH or "German Earth & Stone Works Company" Inc), was an SS owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. DEST was a subsidiary company of Amtsgruppe W (Amt. W) of SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA). Both Amt. W and the WVHA were headed by SS Obergruppenfuehrer Generalleutnant of the Waffen SS Oswald Pohl and SS Gruppenführer Generalleutnant of the Waffen SS Georg Lörner.

The headquarters for DEST was located in Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, a small town in Austria where Gusen II, a subcamp of Mauthausen, was built in 1944.

DEST, founded on April 29, 1938, in Berlin, was administered by the VWHA for the purpose of procuring building materials and organizing slave labor and overseeing quarry operations. The Sachsenhausen (1936), Buchenwald (1937), Flossenbürg (1938), Mauthausen (1938), Natzweiler-Struthof (1939), Gross Rosen (1940) and Neuengamme (1940) concentration camp sites were chosen because of their proximity to soil suitable for making bricks, or due to the close proximity of a brickworks factory or stone quarry.

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