One of the main reasons for the selection of Mauthausen as a site for a concentration camp was the stone quarry.
The Wiener Graben stone quarry, originally owned by the City of Vienna, was rented in April 1938 by the SS and taken over by the SS company Deutsche Erde- und Steinwerke GmbH (DESt) in August of that year. It was one of the main reasons for establishing a concentration camp in Mauthausen. A further factor was the proximity of the city of Linz, which required the granite from the quarry for its building development programme. Until 1943 most of the inmates of Mauthausen concentration camp worked in the quarry. Without even the most primitive safety precautions and with the greatest brutality the inmates were worked to the limit. Many of them - particularly those belonging to the “penal company”, who were used to carry the blocks - were worked to death. From autumn 1943 labour in the DESt quarries, including Wiener Graben, was cut back in favour of the armaments industry. From early 1944 at the latest, there were production facilities for the construction of aircraft components for Messerschmitt in the quarry. In early 1945 barracks for female concentration camp inmates were built there.