Editing German Earth and Stone Works (section)

==History==
''DEST'', founded on April 29, 1938, in [[Berlin]], was administered by the ''WHVA'' for the purpose of procuring building materials and organizing slave labor and overseeing quarry operations.
The [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]] (1936), [[Buchenwald]] (1937), [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]] (1938), [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]] (1938), [[Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp|Natzweiler-Struthof]] (1939), [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp|Gross Rosen]] (1940) and [[Neuengamme concentration camp|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. 
 
''DEST'' was widely successful in the exploitation of slave labor, most of whom were Jews, in the quarries. Human labor was used cruelly, becoming one of the main tenets of [[war crime]] charges in the [[Nuremberg Trials]]. The director of the program, ''SS-Obergruppenführer'' [[Oswald Pohl]], who was stationed in Berlin, was sentenced to death for war crimes in 1947 in Nuremberg, and executed in 1951.

In 1943, ''DEST'' changed its focus from stone industry to armaments. From this time the organization played a key role, helping the SS to enter some key war industries. This was underlined by its industrial park at [[Sankt Georgen an der Gusen|St. Georgen]] and [[Gusen concentration camp|Gusen]] that made the SS a key supplier of aircraft fuselages ([[Messerschmitt Bf 109|Bf 109]], [[Messerschmitt Me 262|Me 262]]), carbines and machine guns to companies like [[Messerschmitt|BFW]], [[Messerschmitt]] and [[Steyr-Daimler-Puch]]. To run its business with the inmates of the Gusen and Mauthausen concentration camps, ''DEST'' operated its headquarters of ''[[Granitwerke Mauthausen]]'' between 1940 and 1945 in the town of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen which was its biggest and most important "Werkgruppe" (industry group).<ref>St. Georgen – Gusen – Mauthausen: Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered By Rudolf Language: English {{ISBN|3-8334-7610-9}} {{ISBN|978-3-8334-7610-5}}</ref>