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HARTHEIM CASTLE - Hartheim (Upper Austria) founded Easter 1940, closed in mid-January 1945 Strictly speaking, the "euthanasia center" Hartheim was not a satellite camp of Mauthausen but there were close personal relationships between Hartheim and the Mauthausen concentration camp. At least 4,841 prisoners of the Mauthausen camp were killed at Hartheim. The Mauthausen concentration camp was built by the SS in August 1938, five months after Austria's annexation to the German Reich. The reason why Mauthausen was selected as the site for a concentration camp lay in the granite quarries situated there. The SS-owned "DEST" company was to purchase the quarries and to exploit them economically. The prisoners of the concentration camp were to be used as cheap labor force in the quarries. For the SS, the concentration camp fulfilled two functions: combating political and ideological enemies through imprisonment, harassment, torment and arbitrary killing (thus spreading fear and terror outside); and exploiting prisoners' labor to the maximum.