Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of Flossenbürg and near the German border with Czechoslovakia.

During the first half of 1938, the Nazi concentration camp population expanded threefold due to increased arrests by the Schutzstaffel (SS) of individuals deemed undesirable, especially "asocial"[a] and "criminal"[b] prisoners, to create a slave labor force.

[4][5] The SS intended to exploit the slave labor of prisoners to quarry granite, which was in high demand for monumental building projects in the Nazi style.

[12] On 24 March 1938, they chose a site near the small town of Flossenbürg, in the Upper Palatinate, for the establishment of a concentration camp[5] due to the quarries of blue-gray granite located nearby.

The local economy, especially the stone industry, was negatively impacted by the new border with Czechoslovakia after the Treaty of Versailles and the 1930s economic slump.

Adolf Hitler's rise to power increased the demand for granite, earning the Nazi Party local support.

[5] More prisoners arrived from Dachau on 9 and 16 May;[20] Himmler visited the camp on 16 May with Pohl, indicating that the SS considered it an important project.

[16] The SS attempted to segregate prisoners incarcerated for criminal offences at Flossenbürg because forced labor in the quarries was considered a particularly harsh punishment.

[24][25] He was replaced by a former SS officer at Dachau, Karl Künstler, who presided over an era in which the camp became an economically productive center for granite quarrying,[25] and increasingly deadly for its prisoners.

On 31 August 1939, the bodies were dumped at a border post in Hochlinden where they were shot and hacked; photographs were taken as "proof" of a Polish attack on Germany.

[28] In September 1939, the SS transferred 1,000 political prisoners to Flossenbürg from Dachau in order to clear the latter camp to train the first regiment of the Waffen-SS.

[29][30] The first foreign prisoners were transferred to the camp by the Gestapo in April, including Czech student protestors and Polish resistance members.

[32] From April 1943, the commandant was Max Koegel, described by American historian Todd Huebner as "a vicious martinet" who lacked the ability to manage the camp during its rapid expansion.

As with other concentration camps, guards initially consisted of SS men from Germany and Austria, whose ranks were augmented with Volksdeutsche recruits after 1942.

[43][44] All four quarries were located near the main camp, and the total planned output was 12,000 cubic metres (420,000 cu ft) annually.

[52] Of the five prewar concentration camps where economic industries were prominent, Flossenbürg was the one that was most significant and consistent in producing income for DEST.

[55] Although civilian production was being scaled back in order to reorient the economy to total war, DEST managed to secure permission to keep many of its quarries open into 1944.

[58][55] According to Yad Vashem historian Daniel Uziel, the conversion of Flossenbürg to armaments production was especially significant because it had been the most profitable DEST enterprise.

[60] The Flossenbürg camp system had become a key supplier of Bf 109 parts by February 1944, when Messerschmitt's Regensburg plant was bombed again during "Big Week".

[62] Prisoners also suffered from a shortage of fresh water, due to the elevation, and unusually cold and wet weather; their clothing was not adequate for these conditions.

Many of the criminal functionaries sexually abused young male prisoners, causing the commandant to isolate teenage boys in separate barracks.

Prisoners were mistreated in various ways, from being beaten or doused with cold water to being shot by guards during alleged escape attempts.

[36] Doctors who had participated in the Aktion T4 mass killings toured several concentration camps to select ill inmates to be transported to euthanasia centers; they visited Flossenbürg in March 1942.

During the last days of the camp's existence, the SS executed thirteen Allied secret agents and seven prominent German anti-Nazis, including former Abwehr head Wilhelm Canaris and the Confessing Church theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

[75] A total of 12,000 prisoners in seventeen transports arrived at Flossenbürg in late 1944 and early 1945, causing the camp to fall into a state of disarray.

In order to cope with the disorder, he founded a camp police force composed of ethnic German prisoners, mostly criminals.

[32] On 14 April 1945, SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered all of the camps to be evacuated: "Not a single prisoner must fall alive into enemy hands".

[85] The route proceeded by rail through Neunburg vorm Wald, Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Pfreimd, Nabburg, and Schwarzenfeld, where, on 19[86] or 20 April, about 750 of the Jewish prisoners were stranded after another aerial attack disabled the locomotive.

[84] SS official Kurt Becher, who was involved in negotiations between Himmler and the Allies, visited Flossenbürg on 17 April and attempted to persuade Koegel not to evacuate the camp.

Initially, the American authorities ordered the bodies to be burned in the camp crematorium, but after protests from the survivors, held a funeral for 21 former prisoners on 3 May.