January 14
Per a directive from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the network of "V-Maenner" (informers) among the foreign workers is expanded in order to protect against the increasingly slipping control over them.
February 14
The governor of the federal district of Wartheland reports that per Himmler's orders the extermination camp Chelmno is to be reactivated. Between May and August 1944 Jews are once again exterminated there.
March
During the retreat of the German army from the east, Soviet, Polish, and Jewish slave laborers are forcibly moved to Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, they are subjected to the selection process, and those deemed able to work are transferred to concentration camps in Germany. Numerous concentration camp satellites are created in conjunction with the movement of the armaments industry to underground facilities.
March 16
Foreign workers complain that the poor nutrition for workers from the east substantially contributes to the development of the black market, e.g., bread is sold for 10 Reichsmarks per pound by workers from the west and east.
April
Transports of Jews from Greece and Hungary begin.
Announcements of transfers, deaths, or other changes pertaining to Soviet slave laborers in concentration camps are to be immediately stopped.
April 3
Hungarian Jews are required to wear identification markings.
April 5
The SS Economic and Administrative Office reports to the Supreme Command of the SS that there are twenty concentration camps with 165 connected labor camps.
April 11
The SS orders that prisoners who have committed "sabotage" are to be publicly executed.
April 25
Creation of "Kommandos Nord" (Department North) of the prison camps in Emsland. Its camps are located in Norway, north of the arctic circle, and contain 1,404 persons.
May
Deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begin. The extermination camp reaches its maximum capacity.
The Gestapo arrests members of the resistance organization "BSW." Almost 400 Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers are shot to death at Dachau and Mauthausen.
Hitler agrees that Jews should again be used in the armaments industry.
A care center is established in Velpke for Soviet and Polish nursing babies and small children. By December, 110 children were sent there, of which ninety-six died.
May 1
The Organizational Division of the Prisoner of War Office announces that a total of 5,165,381 Soviet soldiers fell into German captivity. By 1945 it becomes around 5.7 million, of which slightly over one million survived the camps.
June
Six transports of Hungarian Jews are brought to the preferential camp Strasshof near Vienna, where they are kept for negotiation purposes. The negotiations by the SS with Jewish aid societies, however, are unsuccessful.
Albert Speer complains to Hitler that each month, 30,000 to 40,000 escaped civilian workers and prisoners of war are taken out of the economy when they are arrested by the police and sent to concentration camps for the purposes of the SS.
June 6
"Heuaktion" (Hay Process): 40,000 to 50,000 children between the ages ten and fourteen are to be abducted in the Soviet Union and brought into Germany.
July
Prisoners from the concentration camps at Riga and Kauen are evacuated to the concentration camp Stutthof. From there, some are moved to Buchenwald or Dachau.
Termination of the Kovno ghetto.
July 24
The Soviet army liberates the concentration camp Majdanek.
August
There are 7,615,970 foreign laborers working in Germany. Every second person engaged in agriculture is a foreigner; approximately every third person in mining, construction, or the metal industry is foreign.
Since June, more than 60,000 inmates from the Lodz ghetto have been deported to Auschwitz. At the end of August about 10,000 people remain in the ghetto.
August 9
Kommando X/Group West of the camp Emsland is returned to Germany.
August 15
The total count of prisoners in concentration camps is 379,167 men and 145,119 women.
September
All "Night and Fog" prisoners must be transferred from prisons to concentration camps.
The prisoners of the concentration camp Natzweiler are relocated to the Rhine-Neckar area to work in the underground armaments factories there. The concentration camp headquarters is relocated to Guttenbach/Baden.
Since March, the Gestapo has reported on the the existence of organized resistance groups of civilian workers and prisoners of war in at least thirty-eight cities. At least 2,700 participants have been arrested.
Several members of "bands" of foreigners are publicly executed in Cologne.
September 4
In the first half of 1944, 32,236 of 181,764 Soviet prisoners of war engaged in mining have died.
October
Seizure of all Jewish "Mischlinge" (offspring of mixed parents) in Germany for use in a "restricted work pool."
More than 2.8 million people from the Soviet Union (prisoners of war and civilian laborers) are working in German territory.
Since May more than 88,000 inmates from the ghetto Theresienstadt have been deported to Riga, Minsk, Lublin, and Auschwitz. About 3,500 of them survived.
October 7
Revolt in the crematorium section of Auschwitz- Birkenau. The prisoners blow up one crematorium before being killed.
October 21
Jews who previously were protected because of their "Aryan" spouses are deported from Germany.
The RSHA permits Gestapo sites to conduct executions of foreign laborers based on their own authority.
November 1
The Buchenwald satellite Dora becomes an independent concentration camp named Mittelbau- Dora as well as the center for the underground aircraft and v-armament production in the areas of Thuringen and Harz.
November 30
A lawsuit against the commander and the SS guards of the concentration camp Majdanek is heard in a Polish court.
December
German authorities start to "evacuate" foreign laborers to the east.
December 1
On orders of Himmler the crematoriums and gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau are to be dismantled and blown up.
December 11
The last gassing in the "euthanasia" facility Hartheim occurs. The estimated number of people murdered there is 30,000. Since April 11, 1944, 3,228 people were killed in the concentration camp Mauthausen and the adjacent camp of Gusen.
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