“And yet it was not even Finkenzeller but rather SS-Hauptscharführer Erwin Busta who was the principal terror in the tunnel. Benès describes him as being almost six-foot-six: His head was so elongated at the top and the bottom that it looked like a horse’s head [Pferdekopf] – which was his nickname in every language. He was the most vile of all the SS. He beat whomever he could. Tirelessly. No one knew when he slept. He was in the Tunnel first thing in the morning, at noon and in the evening, and never absent during the night. He prowled from one tunnel gallery to another, poking his nose everywhere, beating people on the spot, as well as writing reports to bring further punishment upon them.”
–André Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp
“On the 1st of November 1944, Dora was, because of its importance, made an independent camp with 31 sub-camps or work details. That was the beginning of the worst period in the entire existence of the camp. In January 1945 many new guards and officers came in from the just evacuated extermination camp AUSCHWITZ Poland. These born criminals made conditions turn to the very worst. Transports came in from other concentration camps which had to be evacuated for the advancing Russian troops. DORA became an even bigger inferno than it had already been. The time of the mass-hangings started. Prisoners were hanged, up to 57 in one day. They were hanged in the tunnels with the help of an electrically controlled crane, a dozen at one time, their hands bound behind the back. A piece of wood was put in their mouth, and held fast by a wire tied at the back of the head in order to prevent shouting. All of the prisoners had to attend these mass-hangings…”
–Nordhausen-Dora Concentration Camp War Crimes Trials, 1947-1948