Established on 24 March 1944 as part of an effort to disperse and increase war production, its prisoners were forced to work in the caverns Richard I and II, producing Maybach HL230 tank engines for Auto Union (now Audi) and preparing the second site for intended production of tungsten and molybdenum wire and sheet metal by Osram.

The SS deployed hundreds of thousands of prisoners on war-related forced labor projects, including some of the most important to the war effort.

[3] In 1943, the Auto Union factory in Chemnitz-Siegmar was ordered to be turned over to the production of Maybach HL230 tank engines, much in demand due to attrition on the Eastern Front.

By late 1943, Hermann Göring[4] (head of the Four Year Plan for war production, which involved mass forced labor)[5] was planning to disperse the Maybach production from the Chemnitz plant[4] to an underground factory under Radobýl Mountain just west of the town of Leitmeritz (now Litoměřice in the Czech Republic).

[6][7] Although there was an existing quarry,[4] the facility had to be expanded in order to accommodate planned spaces for production and assembly several kilometers long.

[15] Due to the lack of accommodation at the work site, they stayed at the Small Fortress (temporarily a Flossenbürg subcamp) until June.

The companies involved, Auto Union and Osram, worked closely with both the SS-Führungsstab B 5 and the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production.

[17] The SS shell company, Mineral-Öl – Baugesellschaft m.b.H., set up to subcontract construction tasks, hired many enterprises[a] from Germany, the Sudetenland and the Protectorate for various roles involving the camp.

[18][19] There was continual conflict between the SS and the companies because the goal of terrorizing and killing prisoners by extermination through labor was incompatible with the aim of securing the highest production possible.

[15] However, the SS withdrew from the project[15][9]—possibly because it was unwilling to accept the responsibility for a risky project[9]—and it was taken over by Amt des Generalbevollmächtigten für Regelung der Bauwirtschaft (GB-Bau, "Office of General Representative for Regulation of the Construction Industry"), part of the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production.

Between 25 September and 30 October, the two most important production lines of components—cylinder heads and crankcases—were transferred to the underground factory at Leitmeritz, comprising 180 machines in total.

[7][18] In February, the command made efforts to improve the conditions for Elsabe prisoners in order to reduce death rates.

[18] The cover name of Osram operating in Leitmeritz was Kalkspat K.G., which was responsible for machinery, power, access roads, and accommodation for civilian workers.

[19] Production was scheduled to begin by the end of 1944, but none ever took place because Osram executives recognized the hopelessness of the war situation.

The third commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Völkner, tried to improve conditions for prisoners but was replaced in November by SS-Hauptsturmführer Heiling, who had the most brutal reputation of the SS leaders.

In 1945, Kohn was put in charge of the prisoners' kitchen and SS-Oberscharführer Günter Schmidt and SS-Scharführer Eduard Schwarz succeeded him.

The first commander of the guard was Emanuel Fritz, a former prosecutor from Vienna, who was replaced by Hauptmann Jelinek in mid-1944 and SS-Oberscharführer Edmund Johann in November.

[36] Leitmeritz began as a male camp, but from February to April 1945, 770 women also were imprisoned at the site,[7] to work for Osram.

[36] By country of origin, the largest groups were Poles (almost 9,000), Soviet citizens (3,500), Germans (950), Hungarians (850), French (800), Yugoslavs (more than 600) and Czechs (more than 500).

The SS guards and administrators as well as civilian laborers lived in the original soldiers' quarters, while prisoners were warehoused in the former stables, indoor riding arena, and storage depot, which were surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence and seven watchtowers.

[11] According to records, 150 people died through November 1944 and after that the mortality rate climbed, with 706 deaths in December, 934 in January 1945, and 862 in February.

The remains of 66 others, who had been buried in seven mass graves, were exhumed in 1946; another 723 bodies were found in a 40-metre (130 ft) long anti-tank ditch.

[30] The Elsabe production lines were dismantled and shipped to the Soviet Union as war reparations, while the barracks were returned to use by the Czechoslovak Army, and used until 2003.

[32] In 1974, former guard Henryk Matuszkowiak was convicted and sentenced to death in Poland for committing fourteen murders at Leitmeritz.