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From 1933 to 1945,
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
operated more than a thousand
concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
(), including subcamps on its own territory and in parts of
German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
became
Chancellor of Germany The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal Cabinet of Germany, government of Germany. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Government of Germany, ...
. Following the 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", " asocials", and
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
. After the beginning of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, people from
German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. 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. Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches. 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

Concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
are conventionally held to have been invented by the British during the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
, but historian Dan Stone argues that there were precedents in other countries and that camps were "the logical extension of phenomena that had long characterized colonial rule". Although the word "concentration camp" has acquired the connotation of murder because of the Nazi concentration camps, the British camps in South Africa did not involve systematic murder. The
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
also established concentration camps during the
Herero and Namaqua genocide Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Nama genocide * Herero chat, a species of bi ...
(1904–1907); the death rate of these camps was 45 per cent, twice that of the British camps. During the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, eight to nine million
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
were held in
prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...
s, some of them at locations which were later the sites of Nazi camps, such as Theresienstadt and Mauthausen. Many prisoners held by Germany died as a result of intentional withholding of food and dangerous working conditions in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention. In countries such as
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
, and Germany, civilians deemed to be of "enemy origin" were denaturalized. Hundreds of thousands were interned and subject to forced labor in harsh conditions. During the
Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...
perpetrated by the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, Ottoman Armenians were held in camps during their deportation into the
Syrian Desert The Syrian Desert ( ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert, and steppe, covering about of West Asia, including parts of northern Saudi Arabia, ea ...
. In postwar Germany, "unwanted foreigners" – mainly Eastern European Jews – were confined at Cottbus-Sielow and
Stargard Stargard (; 1945: ''Starogród'', 1950–2016: ''Stargard Szczeciński''; or ''Stargard an der Ihna''; ) is a city in northwestern Poland, located in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. In 2021 it was inhabited by 67,293 people. It is situated on ...
.


History


Early camps (1933–1934)

On 30 January 1933,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
became
chancellor of Germany The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal Cabinet of Germany, government of Germany. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Government of Germany, ...
after striking a backroom deal with the previous chancellor,
Franz von Papen Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, (; 29 October 18792 May 1969) was a German politician, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and army officer. A national conservative, he served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932, and then as Vice-Chancell ...
. The Nazis had no plan for concentration camps prior to their seizure of power. The concentration camp system arose in the following months due to the desire to suppress tens of thousands of Nazi opponents in Germany. The
Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, ...
in February 1933 was the pretext for mass arrests. The
Reichstag Fire Decree The Reichstag Fire Decree () is the common name of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State () issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immed ...
eliminated the right to personal freedom enshrined in the
Weimar Constitution The Constitution of the German Reich (), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era. The constitution created a federal semi-presidential republic with a parliament whose ...
and provided a legal basis for
detention without trial Indefinite detention is the incarceration of an arrested person by a national government or law enforcement agency for an indefinite amount of time without a trial. The Human Rights Watch considers this practice as violating national and internatio ...
. The first camp was Nohra, established on 3 March 1933 in a school. The number of prisoners in 1933–1934 is difficult to determine; historian Jane Caplan estimated it at 50,000, with arrests perhaps exceeding 100,000. Eighty per cent of prisoners were members of the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
and ten per cent members of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...
. Many prisoners were released in late 1933, and after a Christmas amnesty, there were only a few dozen camps left. About 70 camps were established in 1933, in any convenient structure that could hold prisoners, including vacant factories, prisons, country estates, schools,
workhouses In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses. The earliest ...
, and castles. There was no national system; camps were operated by local police, SS, and SA,
state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
interior ministries, or a combination of the above. The early camps in 1933–1934 were heterogeneous and fundamentally differed from the post-1935 camps in organization, conditions, and the groups imprisoned.


Institutionalization (1934–1937)

On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed
Theodor Eicke Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 – 26 February 1943) was both a senior SS functionary and a Waffen-SS divisional commander in Nazi Germany. He was a key figure in the development of Nazi concentration camps. Eicke served as the second com ...
the second commandant of Dachau, which became the model followed by other camps. Eicke drafted the Disciplinary and Penal Code, a manual which specified draconian punishments for disobedient prisoners. He also created a system of prisoner functionaries, which later developed into the camp elders, block elders, and kapo of later camps. In May 1934, Lichtenburg was taken over by the SS from the Prussian bureaucracy, marking the beginning of a transition set in motion by
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
, then chief of the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
(
secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...
). Following the purge of the SA on 30 June 1934, in which Eicke took a leading role, the remaining SA-run camps were taken over by the SS. In December 1934, Eicke was appointed the first inspector of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate (IKL); only camps managed by the IKL were designated "concentration camps". 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. Believing Nazi Germany to be imperiled by internal enemies, Himmler called for a war against the "organized elements of sub-humanity", including communists, socialists, Jews,
Freemasons Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
, and criminals. Himmler won Hitler's backing and was appointed Chief of German Police on 17 June 1936. Of the six SS camps operational as of mid-1936, only two (Dachau and Lichtenburg) still existed by 1938. In the place of the camps that closed down, Eicke opened new camps at Sachsenhausen (September 1936) and
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...
(July 1937). Unlike earlier camps, the newly opened camps were purpose-built, isolated from the population and the
rule of law The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...
, enabling the SS to exert absolute power. Prisoners, who previously wore civilian clothes, were forced to wear uniforms with Nazi concentration camp badges. The number of prisoners began to rise again, from 4,761 on 1 November 1936 to 7,750 by the end of 1937.


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 habitual criminals or asocials. According to ''SS'' chief
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
, the "criminal" prisoners at concentration camps needed to be isolated from society because they had committed offenses of a sexual or violent nature. In fact, most of the criminal prisoners were working-class men who had resorted to petty theft to support their families. Nazi raids of perceived asocials, including the arrest of 10,000 people in June 1938, targeted homeless people and the mentally ill, as well as the unemployed. Although the Nazis had previously targeted social outsiders, the influx of new prisoners meant that political prisoners became a minority. To house the new prisoners, three new camps were established: Flossenbürg (May 1938) near the Czechoslovak border, Mauthausen (August 1938) in territory annexed from Austria, and Ravensbrück (May 1939) the first purpose-built camp for female prisoners. The mass arrests were partly motivated by economic factors. Recovery from the Great Depression lowered the
unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work du ...
rate, so " work-shy" elements would be arrested to keep others working harder. At the same time, Himmler was also focusing on exploiting prisoners' labor within the camp system. Hitler's architect,
Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of W ...
, had grand plans for creating monumental
Nazi architecture Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a Stripped Classicism, stripp ...
. The SS company German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) was set up with funds from Speer's agency for exploiting prisoner labour to extract building materials. Flossenbürg and Mauthausen had been built adjacent to quarries, and DEST also set up brickworks at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen.
Political prisoners A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...
were also arrested in larger numbers, including
Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a Christian denomination that is an outgrowth of the Bible Student movement founded by Charles Taze Russell in the nineteenth century. The denomination is nontrinitarian, millenarian, and restorationist. Russell co-fou ...
and German émigrés who returned home. Czech and Austrian anti-Nazis were arrested after the annexation of their countries in 1938 and 1939. Jews were also increasingly targeted, with 2,000 Viennese Jews arrested after the Nazi annexation. After the
Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
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.


World War II

At the end of August 1939, prisoners of Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, and other concentration camps were murdered as part of false flag attacks staged by Germany to justify the
invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
. During the war, the camps became increasingly brutal and lethal due to the plans of the Nazi leadership: most victims died in the second half of the war. Five new camps were opened between the start of the war and the end of 1941: Neuengamme (early 1940), outside of
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
;
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
(June 1940), which initially operated as a concentration camp for Polish resistance activists; Gross-Rosen (May 1941) in
Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
; and Natzweiler (May 1941) in territory annexed from France. The first satellite camps were also established, administratively subordinated to one of the main camps. The number of prisoners tripled from 21,000 in August 1939 to about 70,000 to 80,000 in early 1942. This expansion was driven by the demand for
forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
and later the
invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...
; new camps were sent up near quarries (Natzweiler and Gross-Rosen) or brickworks (Neuengamme). In April 1941, the high command of the SS ordered the murder of ill and exhausted prisoners who could no longer work (especially those deemed racially inferior). Victims were selected by camp personnel or traveling doctors, and were removed from the camps to be murdered in euthanasia centers. By April 1942, when the operation finished, at least 6,000 and as many as 20,000 people had been killed – the first act of systematic killing in the camp system. Beginning in August 1941, selected Soviet prisoners of war were killed within the concentration camps, usually within a few days of their arrival. By mid-1942, when the operation finished, at least 34,000 Soviet prisoners had been murdered. At Auschwitz, the SS used
Zyklon B Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consists of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...
to kill Soviet prisoners in improvised
gas chambers A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History Gener ...
. In 1942, the emphasis of the camps shifted to the war effort; by 1943, two-thirds of prisoners were employed by war industries. The death rate skyrocketed with an estimated half of the 180,000 prisoners admitted between July and November 1942 dying by the end of that interval. Orders to reduce deaths in order to spare inmate productivity had little effect in practice. During the second half of the war, Auschwitz swelled in size – fueled by the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews – and became the center of the camp system. It was the deadliest concentration camp and Jews sent there faced a virtual death sentence even if they were not immediately killed, as most were. In August 1943, 74,000 of the 224,000 registered prisoners in all SS concentration camps were in Auschwitz. In 1943 and early 1944, additional concentration camps –
Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...
in Latvia,
Kovno Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
in Lithuania, Vaivara in Estonia, and Kraków-Plaszów in Poland – were converted from ghettos or labor camps; these camps were populated almost entirely by Jewish prisoners. Along with the new main camps, many satellite camps were set up to more effectively leverage prisoner labor for the war effort.


Organization

Beginning in the mid-1930s, the camps were organized according to the following structure: * Dept. I: ''Kommandantur-Stab'', "Command Staff", headed by a
commandant Commandant ( or ; ) is a title often given to the officer in charge of a military (or other uniformed service) training establishment or academy. This usage is common in English-speaking nations. In some countries it may be a military or police ...
and his
adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an Officer (armed forces), officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administration, mostly the management of “human resources” in an army unit. The term is used in French-speaking armed ...
(executive leadership), * Dept. II: '' Politische Abteilung'', "Political Department" (registration and surveillance), * Dept. III: ''Schutzhaftlager'', " Protective Custody Camp", ' being a Nazi
euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...
for
preventive detention Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non- punitive purposes, most often to prevent further criminal acts. Preventive detention sometimes involves the detention of a convicted criminal who has served their sente ...
, headed by a '' Schutzhaftlagerführer'' (operation, organising slave labor) * Dept. IV: ''Standortverwaltung'', "Location management", the (economy, lodging etc. for staff and inmates) * Dept. V: '' Sanitätswesen'', "Medical Services", headed by the camp doctor, and the camp guard. * Dept. VI, only present in certain camps: in charge of care, training and troop support for the SS personnel. In November 1940, the IKL came under the control of the SS Main Command Office and the
Reich Security Main Office The Reich Security Main Office ( , RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and , the head of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The organization's stat ...
(RSHA) took on the responsibility of detaining and releasing concentration camp prisoners. In 1942, the IKL was subordinated to the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA) to improve the camps' integration into the war economy. Despite changes in the structure, the IKL remained directly responsible to Himmler. The camps under the IKL were guarded by members of the ''
SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; or 'SS Death's Head Battalions') was a major branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary (SS) organisation. It was responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps, concentration camps and extermination camps of Nazi Germany ...
'', lit. "SS
Death's Head Emmanuel da Costa Emmanuel da Costa is a fictional character appearing in American comic book published by Marvel Comics. Emmanuel da Costa is an Afro-Brazilian businessman and the father of Roberto da Costa. Dagger Dagoth Daggoth is a fic ...
Units". The guards were housed in barracks adjacent to the camp and their duties were to guard the perimeter of the camp as well as work details. They were officially forbidden from entering the camps, although this rule was not followed. Towards the end of the 1930s, the ''SS-Totenkopfverbande'' expanded their operations and set up military units, which followed the ''
Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...
''
death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings, massacres, or enforced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in w ...
s and massacred
Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
as well as Soviet
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
. Older general SS personnel, and those wounded or disabled, replaced those assigned to combat duties. As the war progressed, a more diverse group was recruited to guard the expanding camp system, including female guards who were not part of the SS. During the second half of the war, army and
air force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
personnel were recruited, making up as many as 52 per cent of guards by January 1945. The manpower shortage was reduced by relying on guard dogs and delegating some duties to prisoners. Corruption was widespread. Most of the camp SS leadership was middle-class and came from the , 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. SS leaders typically lived with their wives and children near the camps where they worked, often engaging prisoners for domestic labor. 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.


Prisoners

Before World War II, most prisoners in the concentration camps were Germans. After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. By the end of the war, only 5 to 10 per cent of the camp population was "Reich Germans" from Germany or Austria. More than 100,000
Soviet prisoners of war The following articles deal with Soviet prisoners of war. * Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919–24) *Soviet prisoners of war in Finland Soviet prisoners of war in Finland during World War II were captured in two Soviet Un ...
and smaller groups from other nationalities were transferred to the concentration camps in direct violation of the
Geneva Convention upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...
. Most Jews who were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust were never prisoners in concentration camps. Significant numbers of Jews were imprisoned beginning in November 1938 because of ''
Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
'', after which they were always overrepresented as prisoners. During the height of the Holocaust from 1941 to 1943, the Jewish population of the concentration camps was low. Extermination camps for the mass murder of Jews— Kulmhof, Belzec,
Sobibor Sobibor ( ; ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), ...
, and
Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
—were set up outside the concentration camp system. The existing IKL camps Auschwitz and Majdanek gained additional function as extermination camps. After mid-1943, some forced-labor camps for Jews and some
Nazi ghettos Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Europe, German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Romani people, into small ...
were converted into concentration camps. Other Jews entered the concentration camp system after being deported to Auschwitz. Despite many deaths, as many as 200,000 Jews survived the war inside the camp system.


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. Life in the camps has often been depicted as a
Darwinian ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...
struggle for survival, although some mutual aid existed. Individual efforts to survive, sometimes at others' expense, could hamper the aggregate survival rate. The influx of non-German prisoners from 1939 changed the previous hierarchy based on triangle to one based on nationality. Jews, Slavic prisoners, and
Spanish Republicans The Republican faction (), also known as the Loyalist faction () or the Government faction (), was the side in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939 that supported the government of the Second Spanish Republic against the Nationalist faction of t ...
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. A minority of prisoners obtained substantially better treatment than the rest because they were prisoner functionaries (mostly Germans) or skilled laborers. Prisoner functionaries served at the whim of the SS and could be dismissed for insufficient strictness. As a result, sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky emphasizes that "They took over the role of the SS in order to prevent SS encroachment" and other prisoners remembered them for their brutality.


Forced labor

Hard labor was a fundamental component of the concentration camp system and an aspect in the daily life of prisoners. However, the forced labor deployment was largely determined by external political and economic factors that drove demand for labor. 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 Moorland or moor is a type of Habitat (ecology), habitat found in upland (geology), upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and the biomes of montane grasslands and shrublands, characterised by low-growing vegetation on So ...
(such as at Esterwegen). Other prisoners had to work on constructing and expanding the camps. 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. Private sector cooperation remained marginal to the overall concentration camp system for the first half of the war. After the failure to take Moscow in late 1941, the demand for armaments increased. The WVHA sought out partnerships with private industry and Speer's Armaments Ministry. In September 1942, Himmler and Speer agreed to use prisoners in armaments production and to repair damage from Allied bombing. Local authorities and private companies could hire prisoners at a fixed daily cost. This decision paved the way for the establishment of many subcamps located near workplaces. More workers were obtained through transfers from prisons and forced labor programs, causing the prisoner population to double twice by mid-1944. Subcamps where prisoners did construction work had significantly higher death rates than those that worked in munitions manufacture. By the end of the war, main camps were functioning more and more as transfer stations from which prisoners were redirected to subcamps. At their peak in 1945, concentration camp prisoners made up 3 per cent of workers in Germany. Historian Marc Buggeln estimates that no more than 1 per cent of the labor for Germany's arms production came from concentration camp prisoners.


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. Beginning in March 1933, detailed reports on camp conditions were published in the press. Nazi propaganda demonized the prisoners as race traitors, sexual degenerates, and criminals and presented the camps as sites of re-education. 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. 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. These subcamps, often established in town centers in such locations as schools, restaurants, barracks, factory buildings, or military camps, were joint ventures between industry and the SS. An increasing number of German civilians interacted with the camps: entrepreneurs and landowners provided land or services, doctors decided which prisoners were healthy enough to continue working, foremen oversaw labor deployments, and administrators helped with logistics. SS construction brigades were in demand by municipalities to clear bomb debris and rebuild. For the prisoners, chances of survival rarely improved despite the contact with the outside world, although those few Germans who tried to help did not encounter punishment. Germans were often shocked to see the reality of the concentration camps up close, but reluctant to aid the prisoners because of fear that they would be imprisoned as well. Others found the poor state of the prisoners to confirm Nazi propaganda about them. Historian
Robert Gellately Robert Gellately (born 1943) is a Canadian academic and noted authority on the history of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era. Education and career He earned his B.A., B.Ed., and M.A. degrees at Memorial Unive ...
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. 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. She writes that demand for SS construction brigades "points to general acceptance of the concentration camps". In Cologne some construction brigade prisoners were shot in broad daylight.


Statistics

There were 27 main camps and, according to historian Nikolaus Wachsmann's estimate, more than 1,100 satellite camps. 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. 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. 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 Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...
, or the
Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...
, 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. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom, according to Wagner, nearly a million died during their imprisonment. Historian
Adam Tooze John Adam Tooze (born 5 July 1967) is an English historian who is a professor at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute and nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe. Previously, he was Reader in Twentieth-Century History at the Un ...
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. 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. 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.


Death marches and liberation

Major evacuations of the camps occurred in mid-1944 from the
Baltics The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...
and eastern Poland, January 1945 from
western Poland Poland () is a country that extends across the North European Plain from the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea in the north. Poland is the fifth-most populous country of the European Union an ...
and
Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
, and in March 1945 from concentration camps in Germany. Both Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners died in large numbers as a consequence of these death marches. Many prisoners died after liberation due to their poor physical condition. 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.


Legacy

Since their liberation, the Nazi concentration camp system has come to symbolize violence and terror in the modern world. After the war, most Germans rejected the crimes associated with the concentration camps, while denying any knowledge or responsibility. Under the West German policy of (), some survivors of concentration camps received compensation for their imprisonment. A few perpetrators were put on trial after the war. Accounts of the concentration camps – both condemnatory and sympathetic – were publicized outside of Germany before World War II. Many survivors testified about their experiences or wrote memoirs after the war. Some of these accounts have become internationally famous, such as
Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was a Jewish Italian chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works i ...
's 1947 book, ''
If This is a Man ''If This Is a Man'' ( ; United States title: ''Survival in Auschwitz'') is a memoir by History of the Jews in Italy, Jewish Italians, Italian writer Primo Levi, first published in 1947. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian resista ...
''. The concentration camps have been the subject of historical writings since
Eugen Kogon Eugen Kogon (2 February 1903 – 24 December 1987) was a German historian and Nazi concentration camp survivor. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, Kogon was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration ...
's 1946 study, ' ("The SS State"). Substantial research did not begin until the 1980s. Scholarship has focused on the fate of groups of prisoners, the organization of the camp system, and aspects such as forced labor. As late as the 1990s, German local and economic history omitted mention of the camps or presented them as exclusively the responsibility of the SS. Two scholarly encyclopedias of the concentration camps have been published: Der Ort des Terrors and Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. According to Caplan and Wachsmann, "more books have been published on the Nazi camps than any other site of detention and terror in history". Stone argues that the Nazi concentration camp system inspired similar atrocities by other regimes, including the Argentine military junta during the
Dirty War The Dirty War () is the name used by the military junta or National Reorganization Process, civic-military dictatorship of Argentina () for its period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983. During this campaign, military and secu ...
, the
Pinochet regime An authoritarian military dictatorship ruled Chile for seventeen years, between 11 September 1973 and 11 March 1990. The dictatorship was established after the Presidency of Salvador Allende, democratically elected socialist government of Salv ...
in Chile, the
Brazilian military dictatorship The military dictatorship in Brazil (), occasionally referred to as the Fifth Brazilian Republic, was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces, with support from the United States government, against presi ...
and Pitești Prison in the
Romanian People's Republic The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Repu ...
.


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Concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', '' molar concentration'', '' number concentration'', ...
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office Total institutions