Angora project
The Angora rabbit's hair and pelt is known for strength and durability, and it was also "associated with luxurious evening wear, [and] would be an elegant solution for keeping SS officers and the German military warm and able to endure rough wartime conditions".
[1] Angora rabbits were raised in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Trawniki.
A bound volume entitled Angora[2] that belonged to Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, was discovered in a farmhouse with his other papers near the end of World War II.
Chicago Tribune war correspondent Sigrid Schultz found the book in its hiding place near Himmler's alpine villa, and described the significance of the Angora project:[1] "In the same compound where 800 human beings would be packed into barracks that were barely adequate for 200, the rabbits lived in luxury in their own elegant hutches.
In Buchenwald, where tens of thousands of human beings starved to death, rabbits enjoyed beautifully prepared meals.
Original German site plan dated 21 June 1942 reads, in part [verbatim translation]: No. 11: Stables, including an Angora rabbit breeding facility;it was an old dilapidated stone building