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Jun 27, 2019 · Learn about early concentration camps the Nazi regime established in Germany, and the expansion of the camp system during the Holocaust and World War II.
- 3 Concentration Camps, 1939–42
Thousands of "security suspects" released from German...
- 1 Nazi Camps
Concentration camps: For the detention of civilians seen as...
- English
Learn about the Nazi concentration camp system between 1942...
- 3 Concentration Camps, 1939–42
concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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During 1934, Reichsführer SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler centralized those camps that held prisoners under orders of “protective custody” (Schutzhaft) under an agency called the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps (Inspekteur der Konzentrationslager; IKL). Himmler appointed Dachau concentration camp commander Theodor Eicke as chief of the IKL. In 1...
Hence, individuals could be incarcerated in concentration camps indefinitely 1. without ever being charged for a specific act; 2. after having been acquitted on charges relating to a specific crime; 3. upon release from prison after serving a sentence handed down by a German court for a specific act; 4. or because the SS and police authorities deem...
In addition to serving as detention centers for persons deemed to be of danger to the Reich, the concentration camp system served two other key purposes of the Nazi regime. First, corresponding to a close relationship between the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps and the business and administrative offices of the SS, the camps were to be the sour...
The concentration camps, standing outside the reach of the German justice authorities, had always been places where the SS could kill prisoners. After the beginning of the war, however, the camps increasingly became sites for the systematic murder of individuals or small groups of persons. Such groups included: Soviet prisoners of war selected by G...
As the Third Reich began to collapse, thousands of prisoners in German-occupied territories were sent on forced marches to the German interior in order to prevent the mass capture of prisoners by Allied forces. Surviving prisoners described these brutal ordeals as “death marches,” due to the high mortality rate and the ruthlessness with which the S...
Generally speaking, a concentration camp is a place where people are concentrated and imprisoned without trial. Inmates are usually exploited for their labour and kept under harsh conditions, though this is not always the case.
- Auschwitz: Genesis of Death Camps. After the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the “Final Solution.”
- Auschwitz: The Largest of the Death Camps. Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940.
- Auschwitz and Its Subdivisions. At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions. The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners.
- Life and Death in Auschwitz. By mid-1942, the majority of those being sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz were Jews. Upon arriving at the camp, detainees were examined by Nazi doctors.
Auschwitz concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, pronounced [kɔntsɛntʁaˈtsi̯oːnsˌlaːɡɐ ˈʔaʊʃvɪts] ⓘ; also KL Auschwitz or KZ Auschwitz) 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 ...
