Nazi concentration camps
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Organization
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Personnel | ||||
Prisoners
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From 1933 to 1945,
The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after
Museums commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime have been established at many of the former camps and the Nazi concentration camp system has become a universal symbol of violence and terror.
Background
During the
History
Early camps (1933–1934)
On 30 January 1933,
The number of prisoners in 1933–1934 is difficult to determine; historian
Institutionalization (1934–1937)
On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed
In early 1934, the number of prisoners was still falling and it was uncertain if the system would continue to exist. By mid-1935, there were only five camps, holding 4,000 prisoners, and 13 employees at the central IKL office. At the same time, 100,000 people were imprisoned in German jails, a quarter of those for political offenses.
Rapid expansion (1937–1939)
By the end of June 1938, the prisoner population had expanded threefold in the previous six months, to 24,000 prisoners. The increase was fueled by arrests of those considered
To house the new prisoners, three new camps were established:
Political prisoners were also arrested in larger numbers, including Jehovah's Witnesses and German émigrés who returned home. Czech and Austrian anti-Nazis were arrested after the annexation of their countries in 1938 and 1939.[30] Jews were also increasingly targeted, with 2,000 Viennese Jews arrested after the Nazi annexation. After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, 26,000 Jewish men were deported to concentration camps following mass arrests, overwhelming the capacity of the system. These prisoners were subject to unprecedented abuse leading to hundreds of deaths – more people died at Dachau in the four months after Kristallnacht than in the previous five years. Most of the Jewish prisoners were soon released, often after promising to emigrate.[30][31]
World War II
At the end of August 1939, prisoners of Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, and other concentration camps were murdered as part of
In April 1941, the high command of the SS ordered the
In 1942, the emphasis of the camps shifted to the war effort; by 1943, two-thirds of prisoners were employed by war industries.
Organization
Beginning in the mid-1930s, the camps were organized according to the following structure:
The camps under the IKL were guarded by members of the
Most of the camp SS leadership was middle-class and came from the war youth generation , who were hard-hit by the economic crisis and feared decline in status. Most had joined the Nazi movement by September 1931 and were offered full-time employment in 1933.[57] SS leaders typically lived with their wives and children near the camps where they worked, often engaging prisoners for domestic labor.[58] Perpetration by this leadership was based on their tight social bonds, a perceived common sense that the aims of the system were good, as well as the opportunity for material gain.[59]
Prisoners
Before World War II, most prisoners in the concentration camps were Germans.
Most Jews who were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust were never prisoners in concentration camps.
Conditions
Conditions worsened after the outbreak of war due to reduction in food, worsening housing, and increase in work. Deaths from disease and malnutrition increased, outpacing other causes of death. However, the food provided was usually sufficient to sustain life.
The influx of non-German prisoners from 1939 changed the previous hierarchy based on triangle to one based on nationality.[50] Jews, Slavic prisoners, and Spanish Republicans were targeted for especially harsh treatment which led to a high mortality rate during the first half of the war. In contrast, Reich Germans enjoyed favorable treatment compared to other nationalities.[50]
A minority of prisoners obtained substantially better treatment than the rest because they were
Forced labor
Hard labor was a fundamental component of the concentration camp system and an aspect in the daily life of prisoners.[69] However, the forced labor deployment was largely determined by external political and economic factors that drove demand for labor.[70] During the first years of the camps, unemployment was high and prisoners were forced to perform economically valueless but strenuous tasks, such as farming on moorland (such as at Esterwegen).[36] Other prisoners had to work on constructing and expanding the camps.[71] In the years before World War II, quarrying and bricklaying for the SS company DEST played a central role in prisoner labor. Despite prisoners' increasing economic importance, conditions declined; prisoners were seen as expendable so each influx of prisoners was followed by increasing death rate.[72][73]
Private sector cooperation remained marginal to the overall concentration camp system for the first half of the war.
At their peak in 1945, concentration camp prisoners made up 3 per cent of workers in Germany.
Public perception
Arrests of Germans in 1933 were often accompanied by public humiliation or beatings. If released, prisoners might return home with visible marks of abuse or psychological breakdown. Using a "dual strategy of publicity and secrecy", the regime directed terror both at the direct victim as well as the entire society in order to eliminate its opponents and deter resistance.[79] Beginning in March 1933, detailed reports on camp conditions were published in the press.[80] Nazi propaganda demonized the prisoners as race traitors, sexual degenerates, and criminals and presented the camps as sites of re-education.[81][80] After 1933, reports in the press were scarce but larger numbers of people were arrested and people who interacted with the camps, such as those who registered deaths, could make conclusions about the camp conditions and discuss with acquaintances.[82]
The visibility of the camps heightened during the war due to increasing prisoner numbers, the establishment of many subcamps in proximity to German civilians, and the use of labor deployments outside the camps.
Historian Robert Gellately argues that "the Germans generally turned out to be proud and pleased that Hitler and his henchmen were putting away certain kinds of people who did not fit in, or who were regarded as 'outsiders', 'asocials', 'useless eaters', or 'criminals'".[90] According to historian Karola Fings, fear of arrest did not undermine public support for the camps because Germans saw the prisoners rather than the guards as criminals.[91] She writes that demand for SS construction brigades "points to general acceptance of the concentration camps".[85] In Cologne some construction brigade prisoners were shot in broad daylight.[92]
Statistics
There were 27 main camps and, according to historian Nikolaus Wachsmann's estimate, more than 1,100 satellite camps.[93] This is a cumulative figure that counts all the subcamps that existed at one point; historian Karin Orth estimates the number of subcamps to have been 186 at the end of 1943, 341 or more in June 1944, and at least 662 in January 1945.[94]
The camps were concentrated in prewar Germany and to a lesser extent territory annexed to Germany. No camps were built on the territory of Germany's allies that enjoyed even nominal independence.[95] Each camp housed either men, women, or a mixed population. Women's camps were mostly for armaments production and located primarily in northern Germany, Thuringia, or the Sudetenland, while men's camps had a wider geographical distribution. Sex segregation decreased over the course of the war and mixed camps predominated outside of Germany's prewar borders.[96]
About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom, according to Wagner, nearly a million died during their imprisonment.[65] Historian Adam Tooze counts the number of survivors at no more than 475,000, calculating that at least 1.1 million of the registered prisoners must have died. According to his estimate, at least 800,000 of the murdered prisoners were not Jewish.[97] In addition to the registered prisoners who died, a million Jews were gassed upon arriving in Auschwitz; including these victims, the total death toll is estimated at 1.8 to more than two million.[2][3] Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least a third of the 700,000 prisoners who were registered as of January 1945.[2]
Death marches and liberation
Many prisoners died after liberation due to their poor physical condition.[100]
The liberation of the camps – documented by the Western Allies in 1945 – has played a prominent part in perception of the camp system as a whole.[101]
Legacy
Since their liberation, the Nazi concentration camp system has come to symbolize violence and terror in the modern world.[102][103] After the war, most Germans rejected the crimes associated with the concentration camps, while denying any knowledge or responsibility.[104] Under the West German policy of Wiedergutmachung (lit. 'making good again'), some survivors of concentration camps received compensation for their imprisonment. A few perpetrators were put on trial after the war.[105]
Accounts of the concentration camps – both condemnatory and sympathetic – were publicized outside of Germany before World War II.
Stone argues that the Nazi concentration camp system inspired similar atrocities by other regimes, including the
Sources
Notes
- ^ abbreviated officially as KL or more commonly as KZ
- forced-labor camps and concentration camps operated by Germany's allies.[1]
- ^ Excludes one million Jews who were gassed directly upon arrival in Auschwitz; including those victims, the total death toll has been estimated at between 1.8 million and more than 2 million.[2][3]
Citations
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 50.
- ^ a b c Orth 2009a, p. 194.
- ^ a b Goeschel & Wachsmann 2010, p. 515.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 11.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 23–24.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 25.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 28.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 31.
- ^ a b White 2009, p. 3.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 19.
- ^ a b c Buggeln 2015, p. 334.
- ^ a b c d White 2009, p. 5.
- ^ a b c White 2009, p. 8.
- ^ a b Wachsmann 2009, p. 20.
- ^ Orth 2009a, p. 183.
- ^ White 2009, p. 7.
- ^ White 2009, p. 10.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 20–21.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 21.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 21–22.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 22.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 22–23.
- ^ a b c Wachsmann 2009, p. 23.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 295–296.
- ^ a b Wachsmann 2009, p. 24.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 253–254.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Orth 2009a, pp. 185–186.
- ^ a b Wachsmann 2009, pp. 25–26.
- ^ a b c d Dean 2020, p. 265.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 342–343.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 402.
- ^ a b c Wachsmann 2009, p. 27.
- ^ a b Orth 2009a, p. 186.
- ^ a b Wagner 2009, p. 130.
- ^ a b c Orth 2009a, p. 188.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 28.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 52.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 29.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 30.
- ^ a b Orth 2009a, p. 190.
- ^ a b Wachsmann 2009, p. 31.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 32.
- ^ a b Orth 2009a, p. 191.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, p. 34.
- ^ Dean 2020, p. 267.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 49.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Orth 2009a, p. 187.
- ^ Orth 2009b, pp. 52–53.
- ^ Orth 2009b, pp. 45–46.
- ^ Orth 2009b, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 47.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 48.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 53.
- ^ Orth 2009b, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 51.
- ^ Orth 2009b, p. 54.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Otto & Keller 2019, p. 13.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 44.
- ^ Sofsky 2013, p. 12.
- ^ Wachsmann 2009, pp. 30–31.
- ^ a b Wagner 2009, p. 127.
- ^ Dean 2020, p. 274.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Buggeln 2014, p. 160.
- ^ Fings 2008, p. 220.
- ^ Wagner 2009, p. 129.
- ^ Orth 2009a, p. 185.
- ^ Buggeln 2015, p. 339.
- ^ Wagner 2009, pp. 130–131.
- ^ Buggeln 2015, p. 342.
- ^ a b c Orth 2009a, p. 189.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 116.
- ^ Orth 2009a, p. 192.
- ^ a b Buggeln 2015, p. 359.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 110.
- ^ a b Fings 2009, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 36, 38.
- ^ Fings 2009, pp. 112–113.
- ^ Fings 2009, pp. 113–114.
- ^ Fings 2009, pp. 116–117.
- ^ a b Fings 2008, p. 217.
- ^ Knowles et al. 2014, pp. 35–36.
- ^ Fings 2009, pp. 117, 119.
- ^ Fings 2009, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 119.
- ^ Gellately 2002, p. vii.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 113.
- ^ Gellately 2002, p. 271.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 15.
- ^ Orth 2009a, p. 195, fn 49.
- ^ Knowles et al. 2014, pp. 28, 30.
- ^ Knowles et al. 2014, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Tooze 2006, p. 523.
- ^ Blatman 2010, p. 9.
- ^ Blatman 2010, p. 10.
- ^ Blatman 2010, p. 2.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 54.
- ^ Buggeln 2015, p. 333.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 39.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 108.
- ^ Marcuse 2009, p. 204.
- ^ Stone 2017, pp. 35–36.
- ^ a b Caplan & Wachsmann 2009, p. 5.
- ^ Blatman 2010, p. 17.
- ^ Caplan & Wachsmann 2009, p. 3.
- ^ Fings 2009, p. 114.
- ^ Caplan & Wachsmann 2009, pp. 5–6.
- ^ Caplan & Wachsmann 2009, p. 6.
- ^ Stone 2017, p. 81.
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- ISBN 978-1-118-97049-2.
- ISBN 978-0-19-160860-5.
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- ISBN 978-0-19-160452-2.
- Goeschel, Christian; Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2010). "Before Auschwitz: The Formation of the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1933-9". Journal of Contemporary History. 45 (3): 515–534. .
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- White, Joseph Robert (2009). "Introduction to the Early Camps". Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA). ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.