Before Auschwitz: Nazi Concentration Camps 1933–39

Before Auschwitz:
Nazi Concentration
Camps 1933–39
The early camps,
1933–34
The Nazi concentration camps
have always been associated with
the mass murder of the Holocaust.
But their roots can be traced back
to an earlier period that started
just weeks after the Nazis came
to power in early 1933.
democrats, union officials and
others – had temporarily been
detained, many in so-called
protective custody. These prisoners
were crammed into prisons,
workhouses, hotels or disused
factories. More space was needed
and new sites were established.
By the end of that year, up to
200,000 real or imagined enemies
of the Nazis – communists, social
“
Everybody is arresting
everybody, bypassing the
prescribed official procedure,
everybody threatens
everybody with protective
custody, everybody threatens
everybody with Dachau ...
Every last street sweeper
nowadays feels responsible
for things whose
connections he had
never understood at all.
Letter from SA-Gruppenführer
Schmid, 1 July 1933
Communists from Worms being marched to Osthofen camp. 1933. © Wiener Library
”
Power and chaos
During this early period, hundreds of
camps were set up across Germany
and run by different Nazi and state
organisations. There was no central
coordination. Each camp was different.
Some were called concentration camps,
but other terms were used too.
Most of these early camps were soon
closed down, often only weeks after they
had opened. Many believed they were
no more than a temporary phenomenon.
This was not to be the case.
Camp street in Dachau. © Wiener Library
200,000
Up to
real or suspected
opponents to National Socialism forcibly
detained during 1933.
www.camps.bbk.ac.uk
Funded by
The SS camp system
The SS – Nazi elite troops – were involved in the
camps from spring 1933 when Heinrich Himmler,
their leader, announced the opening of Dachau.
This was the first concentration camp to be
established by the SS, who were keen to seize
control of all camps. From the spring of 1934,
they began to fulfil their aim.
Himmler entrusted the task of creating the SS
camp system to Theodor Eicke, the ruthlessly
effective commandant at Dachau.
By the late 1930s, following a frenetic programme
of closing down and building new camps, the
principles of the new system were in place. These
were based on Himmler’s vision of creating large,
flexible and expandable camps that were cut off
from outside view and interference.
From the mid-1930s, the purpose of the
camps took an even more sinister turn. Their
role shifted towards the permanent exclusion
of political opponents and social outsiders.
They also became powerful tools for
implementing racial policies.
Hitler gave his unconditional support to the
camp system, which was effectively beyond the
reach of the law and a permanent feature of
the Nazi state. By 1939, there were five main
camps for men, and one for women.
Hermann Baranowski, commandant of Sachsenhausen
(1938–1939) © Wiener Library
“
With effect from
10.12.1934 the
office of ‘Inspector of
Concentration Camps’
is established ... and
directly subordinated
to me. Matters of
organization,
administration and
economic management
... [are] transferred to
the new office.
”
Directive, dated 10 December
1934, by Heinrich Himmler
Early development of
the SS camp system
Roll-call in Dachau concentration camp in the Nazi period. © Wiener Library
1933
1936
1937
1938
1939
–
–
–
–
–
Dachau
Sachsenhausen
Buchenwald
Flossenbürg and Mauthausen
Ravensbrück (for women)
Running the camps
Formed in the 1920s, the SS – or
Schutzstaffel – was an elite political
guard that grew rapidly in size. Under
the command of Heinrich Himmler, its
members became experts in terror and
violence. They were responsible for many
war crimes committed by the Nazis.
Initially, the early concentration
camps were guarded by several
different units, including another
Nazi paramilitary force the SA
(Sturmabteilung), and the police.
From the mid-1930s, a new SS formation
– the Death’s Head SS – was running all
concentration camps increasingly along
military lines as a growing number of
professional guards and officers took
charge. Officers had ultimate control of
daily life inside the camp, often making
their careers within the camp system.
The Death’s Head SS soon became
notorious for its atrocities, regularly
beating and maltreating prisoners,
sometimes murdering them.
4,833
Number of Death’s Head
SS in late 1937
22,033
Number of Death’s Head
SS in mid-1939
SS officers during a roll-call at Sachsenhausen. © Wiener Library
Theodor Eicke
For Theodor Eicke, the Death’s Head
SS was an elite corps of political
soldiers engaged in war against Nazi
enemies. He was admired by many
Camp SS men, who called him ‘Papa
Eicke’, and feared by prisoners.
For Eicke, prisoners were enemies
of the state.
“
While a prisoner has to
do hard physical work,
the SS man at the post
should not be permitted
to stand around in a lazy
manner ... A sentry behaves
in a ridiculous and
unsoldierly manner if he
avoids rain, seeks cover
under trees ... The SS
man has to display pride
and dignity and by his
soldierly example to
show the Communists
and bigwigs that he
is the exponent of
the Third Reich.
”
Service regulations
issued by Theodor Eicke,
1 October 1933
Theodor Eicke, Commandant of Dachau concentration camp, inspects newly
arrived inmates. © Wiener Library
The prisoners
“
The new arrivals
are received with
kicks, blows with
rifle butts and foul
language. Until
the reception
formalities are
completed ...
the new arrivals
have to stand
for hours in
wind and bad
weather, only
scantily clad ...
”
Report by the Social
Democrat resistance
on the arrival of prisoners at
Papenburg, December 1936
Most prisoners arrested when the Nazis first came
to power were released after just a few months.
The majority were German and male. During the
early years, Jews were in a small minority. But
following the November 1938 pogrom, around
26,000 Jewish men were sent to Dachau,
Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, almost doubling
the concentration camp prisoner population. Most of
these prisoners were released after weeks of brutal
abuse, providing they would emigrate.
From the mid-1930s, the Nazis sent to camps more
than 10,000 social outsiders in their attempt to
‘remodel’ society. These included the homeless,
beggars, prostitutes, the ‘work-shy’, alcoholics,
homosexual men and petty criminals. Once inside
the camp, prisoners were identified through a serial
number and badges which were sewn to the left
breast of the jacket and the trouser leg.
Prisoner
hierarchies
There was a distinctive hierarchy
within the prisoner population. Senior
prisoners were charged with keeping
other prisoners in line and acted as
the link between the prisoner groups
and the SS. In some camps political
prisoners took a controlling position,
while in others the ‘criminals’ or
social outsiders took the dominant
role. Some tried to improve living
conditions for the prisoners, while
others misused their powers for their
own benefit. Solidarity and tensions
existed among the prisoner groups.
For example, many political prisoners
resented having to live side by side
with beggars or common criminals.
Roll-call in Buchenwald of Jewish men arrested during the November
Pogrom 1938. © Wiener Library
Badges were
used to classify
inmates
■ Political
prisoners:
red triangle
Concentration camp
prisoner numbers
3,800 Summer 1935
4,761 1 November 1936
7,750 30 December 1937
24,000 30 June 1938
50,000 Mid-November 1938
21,400 1 September 1939
■ Criminals:
green triangle
■ Homosexuals:
pink triangle
■ Jehovah’s
Witnesses:
purple triangle
© Wiener Library
■ ‘Asocials’:
black or brown triangle
■ Jewish prisoners wore an additional
yellow Star of David under the
classification triangle.
Life and death
in the camps
Each barrack in Buchenwald housed several hundred men
who slept on four-tier bunks made of wooden planks.
Prisoners were constantly abused by SS guards who
regularly beat and humiliated them.
Food and clothes were scarce.
From the mid-1930s, discipline and terror
became standardised features of camp life.
For prisoners, each day meant exhausting
roll-calls, brutal military drill, random abuse
and the threat of punishment for the
slightest error or infringement of the rules.
Most of all, though, it meant forced labour.
For the Nazis, exhausting work had a dual
function: punishing alleged misdeeds and
instilling discipline into the ‘work-shy’.
Work in the camps was primarily an
instrument of torture. At times, it was
completely pointless, with prisoners carting
sand or stones from one end of the camp
to the other, and back again.
Discipline and
resistance
Discipline was strict. Men were
expected to fall in for parade
noiselessly, swiftly and in military
fashion. Private conversations
when working were forbidden.
Quiet and order had to prevail
during meal and free times.
Political prisoners sometimes
created secret networks to support
each other. Outright resistance was
extremely difficult and dangerous as
the Camp SS brutally repressed any
underground activity.
Service timetable
Sachsenburg,
7 May 1935
Reveille
Coffee
Parade
Start of work
Breakfast
Start of work
End of work
Lunch
Work deployment
and start
End of work
Parade
Taps
5.00am
5.30am
6.00am
6.05am
8.30am
9.00am
11.30am
12.00am
Inmates of Oranienburg concentration camp peeling potatoes and
supervised by guards. Early 1930s (a Nazi propaganda picture).
© Wiener Library
1.30pm
5.30pm
6.00pm
9.00pm
“
In the gardening section there have
been repeated thefts lately by
prisoners of planted red and white
radishes and chives. I therefore
punish the whole camp by
withdrawal of the midday meal.
Penal regulation of the Buchenwald camp,
29 April 1938
”
Women at work at Ravensbrück concentration camp
(photograph taken by the SS). © Wiener Library
The camps and
the outside world
In 1933–34, the camps were not hidden
from the public. During this period, local
newspapers pedalled propaganda about
the camps as places for ‘re-education’.
Yet, tens of thousands of prisoners who
were released told a very different story.
From the mid-1930s, the new SS
camps were increasingly hidden from
public view. But the camps continued to
have a great deal of contact with the
surrounding areas. Local businesses
delivered goods to them, and
camp prisoners were often
forced to work outside the
camps. Some SS officers and
their families lived in nearby
towns and villages.
The Nazis were all too aware of
the public impact of the camps –
and that they served as stark
warnings to the German people of the
consequences of stepping out of line.
Yet the regime was also concerned about
‘atrocity propaganda’ in foreign and
exile newspapers. Nazi propaganda
tried to play down terror in the camps.
“
When the foreign
press runs out of puff
in its smear campaign
against Germany ...
it reaches for the
worn-out story that
evidently seems to
have the greatest
pull: the atrocities
in the German
concentration camps.
Das Schwarze Korps (the official
SS newspaper) 13 February 1936
Inmates looking at an ‘educational’ placard at Sachsenhausen
(photograph taken by the SS). © Wiener Library
”
Document sent with ashes of an inmate of Buchenwald to his next
of kin. 17 August 1938. © Wiener Library
“
... the feeling that we were leaving
while the others had been inside
for weeks, months and years and
we could not take them
with us was terrible.
”
Report by a Jewish doctor on his
release from Buchenwald, 1939
From the pre-war camps
to the Holocaust
How were the early concentration camps
different from those used during the war?
First, there were far fewer of them, with
prisoner numbers in their thousands, rather
than hundreds of thousands. The full horror
of slave labour was yet to be realised.
Large-scale executions or mass killings
were unheard of.
Yet, despite these fundamental differences,
the pre-war camps were clearly connected
to those of the war years – mutating from
places of brutal abuse into sites of
unprecedented atrocity.
New camps like Auschwitz were built on
years of SS experience, while older camps
like Dachau adapted to the murderous
wartime climate and continued to
operate until the end of the war.
The pre-war concentration camps played
a significant role in creating the system
upon which the later camps – and the
atrocities perpetrated within them
– would be based.