Concentration Camps

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Write an account of the development of the concentration camp system between 1933 and 1939 [15]

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Formation of Concentration Camps (1933)

• Background: After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, the Nazis sought to eliminate political opposition and control society.
  
• First camp: Dachau, opened March 1933 near Munich — originally used for political prisoners (e.g., Communists, Social Democrats).
  
• Run by the SS (Schutzstaffel): Over time, Himmler and the SS took full control of the camp system.
  
• Legal cover: Camps operated under "protective custody" — detainees could be imprisoned without trial or legal rights.
  

Purpose of Camps (Early Years)

• Suppress political opposition: Targeted Communists, trade unionists, and political dissenters.
  
• Intimidate society: Camps acted as a tool of fear and control.
  
• Re-education and punishment: Used forced labor and brutal discipline to break prisoners’ will.
  

Development of the Camp System (1933–1939)

• Expansion beyond politics: New groups targeted, including:
  
  • Jews
    
  • Jehovah’s Witnesses
    
  • Roma and Sinti
    
  • Homosexuals
  • “Asocials” (e.g., beggars, alcoholics

​SS Consolidation:

• Himmler created the SS Death’s Head Units to run the camps.
• SS Economic Enterprises used camps for forced labor in SS-owned industries.
  
• Conditions:
  
  • Extremely harsh: overcrowding, malnutrition, physical abuse.
    
  • Designed to dehumanize and exploit prisoners.
    
• Major camps by 1939:
  
  • Dachau
    
  • Buchenwald
    
  • Sachsenhausen
    
  • Ravensbrück (women)
    

Expansion During Wartime (1939–1945)

• Invasion of Poland (1939):
  
  • Nazi control spreads to Eastern Europe.
    
  • Mass arrests and deportations, especially of Jews and Polish elites.
    
• New types of camps:
  
  • Transit camps (temporary holding)
    
  • Labor camps (e.g., Mauthausen, Auschwitz III/Monowitz)
    
  • Extermination camps (from 1941): Designed solely to murder.
    
• “Final Solution” (1941–42 onwards):
  
  • Decision to systematically exterminate Jews.
    
  • Key extermination camps:
    
    • Auschwitz-Birkenau
      
    • Treblinka
      
    • Sobibor
      
    • Belzec
      
    • Chelmno
      
    • Majdanek
      
• Forced labor: Camps became economic tools to support the war effort.
  
• Conditions worsened: Starvation, disease, mass shootings, gas chambers.
  
• Death marches (1944–45): As Allies advanced, Nazis evacuated camps, forcing prisoners on deadly marches.
  

Key Points 

• Dates:
  
  • 1933: Dachau opens.
    
  • 1939: Start of WWII; major camp expansion.
    
  • 1941: Einsatzgruppen mass killings; planning of extermination camps.
    
  • 1942: Wannsee Conference — “Final Solution” formalized.
    
• Organisations:
  
  • SS (Himmler): Controlled camp system.
    
  • Gestapo: Arrested and deported prisoners.
    
• Camp Functions:
  
  • Early: Political repression.
    
  • Later: Racial purification, economic exploitation, and genocide.
    
• Terminology:
  
  • Concentration camp: Detention, forced labor.
    
  • Extermination camp: Industrialized mass murder.