Third Reich concentration camps

The system of concentration camps in Germany arose in 1933-1934 as an impromptu solution to fight tens of thousands of opponents of the Nazi regime ^[2] .

Before the start of World War II

The creation of the first concentration camps began immediately after ^{[ source? ] the} Nazis came to power in 1933 with the aim of isolating those suspected of opposition to the regime of Nazi Germany. According to the decree of the Reich President on February 28, 1933 “ On the protection of the people and the state ”, persons suspected of hostility to the regime could be subjected to so-called protective arrest for an indefinite period. The first prisoners of the concentration camps were members of the KKE and the SPD . In July 1933, the number of “preventively” arrested reached 26,789 ^{[ source? ]} , but then many were released and at the end of 1937 the number of concentration camp prisoners decreased to 8 thousand. ^{[ source? ]} After that, criminal criminals and the so-called asocial element — tramps, drunkards, etc., began to be sent to concentration camps. Around the same time, German Jews first began to be imprisoned in concentration camps only in connection with their nationality. ^[one]

The early concentration camps did not yet have a single structure and varied both in terms of management and in terms of protection. Since May 1934, small concentration camps were gradually closed, and prisoners were transferred to large concentration camps. Since 1934, the concentration camps were in charge of the Inspection of Concentration Camps , which in 1942 became part of the Main Administrative Department of the SS . In 1934-39, Theodor Eike was the Inspector of Concentration Camps, who had previously been the commandant of the Dachau Camp , one of the first concentration camps. In October 1933, Eike introduced the “camp routine”, which was introduced with slight deviations in almost all the camps that existed at that time and was preserved until 1939. The “Dead Head” detachments guarded the concentration camps.

In 1938, the total number of prisoners increased from 24 thousand to 60 thousand. ^{[ source? ]} in connection with the Anschluss of Austria , and also due to the fact that after Kristallnacht, about 35 thousand were imprisoned in concentration camps ^{[ source? ]} Jews. However, before the outbreak of World War II, Jews could achieve liberation if they were able to obtain emigration documents. This led in 1939 to a significant decrease in the number of Jews imprisoned in concentration camps. On the eve of the war, the total number of prisoners of concentration camps was 25 thousand people. ^[one]

During World War II

With the outbreak of war, the camp system was expanded. The exemptions from the concentration camps were canceled. At the same time, the composition of the prisoners has also changed: in addition to the increased number of political prisoners from Nazi Germany, prisoners from the occupied regions, including Soviet prisoners of war and people arrested on the basis of the “ Night and Fog ” order (7,000 suspected members of the Resistance movement), were in large numbers in the camps. in France , Belgium and the Netherlands , who were taken to Germany and sentenced there). ^[3] During the Second World War, the camps also contained members of the Resistance movement from other occupied countries, homosexuals , gypsies , Jehovah's Witnesses .

In the spring of 1941, the first massacre of concentration camp inmates began - operation 14f13 (the destruction of disabled prisoners, which became a continuation of the Nazi program of killing T-4 ). Then, in the fall of 1941, in the concentration camps, Soviet commanders and political workers selected from the camps were massacred - at least 34,000 people were killed ^{[4] [5]} .

Beginning in 1941, “ death camps ” and “death factories” appeared, the sole purpose of which was the methodical murder of European Jews . These camps were established in Eastern Europe, mainly in Poland . ^[6] . These camps ( Belzec , Sobibor , Treblinka , Chelmno ) are often referred to as concentration camps, although Holocaust researchers distinguish between concentration camps and death camps. In fact, only those Jews who were temporarily left alive for labor use were confined to concentration camps.

In 1943, Jewish ghettos , some ^{[ what? ]} Gestapo prisons and Jewish labor camps in the occupied territories were declared concentration camps, although they partially functioned as prefabricated and transit camps. ^[3]

Until mid-January 1945, along with approximately 37,000 male guards, 3,500 women served in concentration camps ^{[ source? ]} . They belonged to the so-called Suite SS . The need for wardens first arose with the transformation of the Lichtenburg concentration camp into a women's concentration camp in December 1937 . This need increased as the number of female concentration camps increased, such as Ravensbrück ( 1939 ), the female concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau ( 1942 ), Mauthausen ( 1943 ) and Bergen-Belsen ( 1944 ). From May 1940 to January 1945, 200 prison guards served in the Auschwitz concentration camp from May 1940 to January 1945. ^{[ source? ]} . The meager literature on this topic refers to about 10% of women among concentration camp personnel. SS male personnel were denied access to women's camps; they were only employed in external security. The camp commandant, doctors, as well as security and labor service commanders could enter the camp, as a rule, only accompanied by the female staff of the camp. ^[7]

Liquidation of concentration camps

As a result of the liquidation of the concentration camps that began in connection with the liberation by the Allies of the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in the summer of 1944, only 15 main camps functioned. Of the approximately 700,000 people still held in concentration camps in January 1945, from a third to almost half died from the catastrophically worsened conditions in the camps during the last months of the war. Some of the prisoners were killed by guards during mass shootings in camps or on " death marches " in the last months and days of the war. ^[3] In March-April 1945, under the leadership of the then Vice President of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, over 15,000 concentration camp inmates were transported to Sweden on white buses with the Red Cross emblem , of which about 8,000 were citizens of Norway and Denmark , and the rest were citizens another 20 countries, but mainly France and Poland . ^[eight]

In total, from 1939 to 1945, about 2.5 million people were imprisoned in concentration camps, of which about 15% were Germans ^{[ source? ]} . In concentration camps, with the exception of Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and Majdanek (which were also death camps), according to various estimates, from 836,000 to 995,000 people died ^{[ source? ]} . In Auschwitz and Majdanek, another 1.1 million people died, of which the vast majority were Jews ^[9] .

According to the "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" ^[10] : "Chronologically, the use of concentration camps can be divided into three periods: 1933-1936, 1936-1942. and 1942-1945 ” .

Timeline

The history of the camps can be divided into 4 phases:

During the first phase, at the beginning of Nazi rule, camps began to be built throughout Germany. These camps were more similar to prisons , they were mainly political prisoners who fell under the so-called “ protective arrest ”. The construction of the camps was supervised by several organizations: the SA , the police and SS leaders led by Himmler , which were originally intended to protect Hitler . During the first phase, about 26 thousand were imprisoned. ^{[ source? ]} people who were completely in the power of warders. Theodor Eike was appointed inspector, he supervised the construction and drafted the statutes of the camps. Concentration camps became places outside the law and were inaccessible to the outside world. Even in case of fire, fire brigades did not have the right to enter the camp ^[11] .

The second phase began in 1936 and ended in 1938 . During this period, new camps began to be built due to the growing number of prisoners. The composition of prisoners has also changed. If until 1936 these were mostly political prisoners, now “ asocial elements ” (homeless and unwilling to work), previously convicted persons, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexual men ended up in prison. Thus, attempts were made to cleanse society from people who did not fit into the image of an ideal Aryan society. During the second phase, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald camps were built, which were signals of an outbreak of war and an increasing number of prisoners. After Kristallnacht in November 1938, Jews began to exile in the camps, which led to the overflow of existing ones and the construction of new camps.

Further development of the camp system took place during the third phase from the beginning of World War II and somewhere until mid-1941 - early 1942. After a wave of arrests in Nazi Germany, the number of prisoners doubled over a short period of time. With the outbreak of war, prisoners from occupied countries began to be sent to the camps: French , Poles , Belgians and others. Among these prisoners was a large number of Jews and Gypsies. Soon, the number of prisoners in the camps built on the territories of the conquered states exceeded the number of prisoners in Germany and Austria. ^{[ how much? ]} .

The fourth and final phase began in 1942 and ended in 1945. This phase was accompanied by increased persecution of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war. During this phase, between 2.5 and 3 million were in camps. ^{[ source? ]} person.

Camp List

• Amersfoort ( German: Durchgangslager Amersfoort )
• Arbeitsdorf ( German: Arbeitsdorf )
• Banitsa ( German: KZ Banjica )
• Belzec ( Polish Bełżec )
• Berlin-Marzahn ( German: Berlin-Marzahn )
• Bergen-Belsen ( German: Bergen-Belsen )
• Bogdanovka
• Bozen (Bolzano)
• Breitenau ( German: Breitenau )
• Brevetvet ( Nor. Bredtveit fengsel, forvarings- og sikringsanstalt )
• Buchenwald (German: Buchenwald)
• Dachau ( German: Dachau )
• Drancy ( French Drancy )
• Sachsenhausen ( German: KZ Sachsenhausen )
• Majdanek ( Polish: Majdanek , German: Konzentrationslager Lublin, Vernichtungslager Lublin , Hebrew מיידנק )
• Maly Trostenets ( Belorussian. Small Tracyants )
• Mauthausen ( German: Mauthausen )
• Auschwitz (Auschwitz, Birkenau) ( German: Auschwitz )
• Plaszow (Pol. Płaszów)
• Salaspils or Kurtenhof ( German: Polizeigefängnis und Arbeitserziehungslager Salaspils )
• Sobibor
• Syretsky concentration camp
• Theresienstadt ( German: Theresienstadt )
• Treblinka
• Flossenbürg ( German: KZ Flossenbürg )
• Hammelburg

Among other things, concentration camps were used as medical laboratories for inhuman medical experiments on people:

• Twin experiments
• Experiments on homosexual men
• Hypothermia experiments
• Experiments with malaria
• Mustard gas experiments
• Sulfanilamide experiments
• Seawater experiments
• Sterilization experiments
• Experiments with poisons
• Incendiary experiments
• Differential Pressure Experiments

• 14 f 1: natural death
• 14 f 2: suicide or accidental death
• 14 f 3: shot while trying to escape
• 14 f I: execution
• 14 f 13: Special order for sick and weak prisoners (action 14f13, according to which weak and sick prisoners were killed)

As the Allied forces approached from the end of 1944, the German leadership began moving prisoners of concentration camps from the occupied territories to camps within Germany itself. First, the prisoners were taken out by trains, then they started to transport on foot. During these movements, many prisoners perished from hunger, cold, illness, exhaustion and guard violence. Due to the mass death of prisoners during the trekking crossings, the name “death marches” appeared ^{[12] [13]} .

In total, on January 15, 1945, there were 714,211 prisoners (511,537 men and 202,647 women) in German concentration camps. According to the estimates of Martin Broshat , A third of these prisoners died during the "death marches" ^[14] . Yehuda Bauer notes that this figure does not take into account many additional victims who were not listed in prison statistics as of January 15, 1945 ^[15] .

The book of Czechoslovak authors Irena Mala and Ludmila Kubatova “Death March” contains an incomplete list of 52 “death marches” from German camps based on materials collected immediately after the war by the United Nations Relief and Recovery Administration ^[16] .

United States Mission to the United Nations

In December 2004, “The US Mission to the United Nations called on the UN Secretary General to convene the Special Session of the General Assembly on January 24, 2005.” The special session was timed to coincide with the "60th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners of fascist concentration camps" :

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army liberated the first and largest of the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz (Auschwitz), located 70 kilometers from Krakow. In fascist camps, 6 million Jews and millions of people of other nationalities were destroyed.

- site news.un.org/ru, article "The United States proposes to hold a special session of the General Assembly on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps"

UN General Assembly Resolution “Holocaust Remembrance”

The resolution notes that “the sixtieth session of the General Assembly takes place 60 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime” , and also recalls “the twenty-eighth special session of the General Assembly, a unique event to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps” . The General Assembly decided:

1. Decides that the United Nations will declare January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to be celebrated annually; ... 3. rejects any Holocaust denial - whether full or partial - as a historical event;

- From the text of the Resolution “Memory of the Holocaust”

Later, Resolution of the UN General Assembly of January 26, 2007 No. A / RES / 61/255 “Holocaust Denial” was adopted.

Reaffirming its resolution 60/7 of November 1, 2005, this document “1. condemns, without reservation, any denial of the Holocaust ” ; and "2. “Urges all Member States to unconditionally reject any Holocaust denial, whether full or partial, as a historical event and any action to that end . ”

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  Buchenwald Crematorium

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  The bodies of the tortured prisoners of Buchenwald

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• Japanese internment in the USA
• The Gulag
• Concentration camps in the DPRK

in Russian

• Аристов С. В. Нацистский женский концентрационный лагерь Равенсбрюк (1939-1945 гг.): стратегии выживания узниц. — Курск, 2010. — 220 с.
• Аристов С. В. Повседневная жизнь нацистских концентрационных лагерей. — М. : Молодая гвардия , 2017. — 320 с. — (Живая история: Повседневная жизнь человечества). — ISBN 978-5-235-03936-0 .
  • Мир наизнанку: Повседневная жизнь нацистских концентрационных лагерей. Главы из книги. Part 1
  • Мир наизнанку: Повседневная жизнь нацистских концентрационных лагерей. Главы из книги. Part 2

in other languages

• Bauer Y. The Death-Marches, January-May, 1945 (англ.) // Modern Judaism. — Oxford University Press , 1983. — Vol. 3 , iss. 1 . — P. 1—21 .
• Richard J. Evans. The Coming Of The Third Reich. — London & New York : Penguin Books , 2003. — ISBN 978-0-141-00975-9 .
• Richard J. Evans. The Third Reich In Power. — London & New York : Penguin Books , 2005. — ISBN 978-0-141-00976-6 .
• Hans Beimler. Im Mörderlager Dachau. Vier Wochen in den Händen der braunen Banditen , Moskau 1933. — Der erste authentische Bericht über die Zustände in einem faschistischen KZ.
• Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Hrsg.). Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. 9 Bände, CH Beck, München 2005—2009, ISBN 3-406-52960-7 .
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 / Editor Geoffrey P. Megargee. Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA). — USA: Indiana University Press , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , 2009. — Vol. 1. — ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3 .
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 / Editor Geoffrey P. Megargee. Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe. — USA: Indiana University Press , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , 2012. — Vol. 2. — ISBN 978-0-253-00202-0 .
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 / Editor Geoffrey P. Megargee. Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. — USA: Indiana University Press , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , 2018. — Vol. 3. — ISBN 978-0-253-02386-5 .

• Концентрационные лагеря — статья из Электронной еврейской энциклопедии
• Концентрационные и внешние лагеря
• Клара Вальтер, Михаил Бушуев. В третьем рейхе было намного больше лагерей, чем считалось до сих пор // Deutsche Welle , 11.02.2013.
• Нильс Кристи . Охранники в концлагерях ( Christie N. Fangevoktere i konsentrasjonsleire: En sosiologisk undersøkelse av norskefangevoktere i «serberleirene» i Nord-Norge i 1942-43. Oslo : Pax, 1972; Пер. с норв. Анны Турунтаевой; Комм. Анны Турунтаевой и Александра Тарасова ).