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The KL Natzweiler-Struthof is a Nazi concentration camp located in 1941 on Mount Louise, near the Alsatian village of Natzwiller (germanized in Natzweiler). Its establishment is the result of the discovery of a rose granite line by the German authorities, then exploited by deportees under forced labour. The camp, officially opened on 1 May 1941, became a central place of deportation in Western Europe, with approximately 50,000 prisoners registered between 1941 and 1945, representing 32 nationalities. It is the only Nazi concentration camp in France.

As early as 1942, Natzweiler served as a place of execution for those sentenced to death by the Nazi courts of Alsace-Moselle and Baden-Württemberg. It also houses medical experiments conducted by professors at the University of the Reich in Strasbourg, such as August Hirt (anatomist), Otto Bickenbach (virologist) and Eugen Haagen (bacteriologist). These experiments include tests on mustard gas, phosgene, and gassing assassinations to form an anatomical collection of 86 Jewish skeletons. A gas chamber, built in 1942, is used for these purposes.

The main camp was evacuated in September 1944 in front of the Allied advance, but its 70 side camps (some in Germany) continued to operate until 1945. An estimated 17,000 people died in the concentration complex. Released by the Americans on November 25, 1944, it was the first camp discovered by the Allies in the West. After the war, the site became a national memorial (opened in 1960) and a high place of memory, classified as a historical monument and protected by the state.

Among the deportees are famous resistance fighters such as General Aubert Frère, SOE agents (including four women executed in 1944), and detainees "Nuit et Brouillard" (NN), subjected to a regime of extreme isolation. Conditions of detention – malnutrition, forced labour, abuse – cause thousands of deportees to die. The camp was also marked by mass executions, such as 106 Alliance resistors in September 1944.

After 1945, the Struthof was transformed into a prison for collaborators, then a memorial with a museum (opened in 1965, rebuilt after arson in 1976). In 2005, the European Centre for Deported Resistance was opened. The site, classified as High Place of National Memory in 2014, has been subject to archaeological excavations and restorations since 2018.

The post-war trials (1946-1955) condemned several SS officials, including Josef Kramer (punished in 1945) and Friedrich Hartjenstein (died before his execution). Doctors Otto Bickenbach and Eugen Haagen, authors of experiments on deportees, are sentenced to 20 years of hard labour. The camp remains a symbol of Nazi crimes in France and European resistance.

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