| The
Facts About the Origins Of the third Reich Concentration Camps
And Their Administration |
Here's a fascinating look at the concentration camp system inside
Germany, devoid of the hysteria often associated with the subject
in Hollywood films and in the mainstream media and academia.
This may be the first-ever detailed examination of the concentration
camp system, presenting a far different picture from what we have
been told.
In propagating a politicized
view of German history many in the media and academia have attempted
to portray the German system of imprisonment in concentration camps
as some sort of precursor to genocide, as a living hell where it
was official German policy to make life miserable and to victimize,
beat, torture, rape and murder innocent civilians simply because
of religious or political persuasion or sexual orientation.
Is this sensational view
of history correct?
No, the role of German concentration camps was much different and
probably better in many ways than the American prison system today.
German concentration camps had a much more positive role to play
in Hitler's new and progressive National Socialist state.
The facts will will bear
out that the establishment historians have purveyed a view of concentration
camp life that cannot be substantiated.
The daily life in a concentration
camp was much different than most historians will admit.
In 1948, Paul Rassinier,
a former Socialist and critic of National Socialist Ger many who
had himself been interned in the concentration camps of Buchenwald
and Dora, published Crossing the Line (Le Passage de la Ligne).
In this work, Ras sinier claimed that the Germans had been benign,
if not positive, in their motives for putting enemies of Hitler?s
National So cialist state in concentration camps. Ras sinier claimed
that the concentration camps were a gesture of compassion. since
inmates had been placed where they could not hurt the new regime
and where they could be protected from the public anger.
Not only did the concentration
camps protect anti-social elements in Rassinier's view, but they
were also designed to rehabilitate the strayed sheep and to bring
them back to a healthier concept of the German community. According
to Rassinier, the German government was helping those whom it committed
to concentration camps by putting them in a setting so that they
could be rehabilitated into more productive members of the German
community.
Those who fell into the
categories of persons assigned to concentration camps included any
person condemned for treasonable activities, as well as Communist
Party officials and anyone who incited a German citizen to refuse
military service. Persons who were considered by the authorities
of the Third Reich as being an anti-social malefactor were also
sent to the camps. Anti-social malefactors consisted of professional
and habitual criminals, that is those people who had been sentenced
to a minimum of six months imprisonment or hard labor on at least
three separate occasions.
Anti-social malefactors also specifically included beggars, prostitutes,
homosexuals, drunkards, psychopaths and lunatics.3 Persons who were
work shy were also sent to concentration camps. According to Heinrich
Himmler, the head of the SS, work shy meant unemployed men who ?could
be proved to have refused without adequate reason employment offered
to them on two occasions.
The first persons arrested
and sent to concentration camps were communists who had taken part
in efforts to undermine the fabric of the German state. Most of
these communists arrested were de nounced to local authorities by
fellow work ers and neighbors who were concerned about their activities.
During March and April
1933, the Ger man people reported the activities of over 10,000
communists in Germany. Given the large membership and well organized
activities of the German Communist Party (KPD), the local jails
were soon filled, and the National Socialist government in Berlin
was forced to decide where to house these persons, who were a clear
and present danger to the continuation of Germany as an independent
and sovereign nation. With the jails and prisons filled to capacity,
local officials began to take over abandoned warehouses and factories
to hold the communists. These makeshift holding facilities have
since become known as wild concentration camps. Since they were
spur-of-the-moment inventions.
The name concentration
camp simply means an area where dangerous elements are concentrated.
Hitler once said the idea for concentration camps came from his
studies of the Boer War in South Africa.
During that war, the
British built camps and concentrated wo men and children of Dutch
ancestry. Dur ing their confinement in British concentration camps,
over 26,000 died mainly of starvation, since the British made no
ef fort to feed the unarmed and helpless women, nor did they allow
them to leave and go back to their farmsteads. This action of the
British against unarmed women and children mainly goes overlooked
by Establish ment historians, who instead accuse the German concentration
camps of being death camps whose sole purpose was kil ling unarmed
civilians. But this is not the case.
The first official concentration
camp set up in Germany was established about 12 miles from Munich
in the town of Dachau, inside a former gunpowder factory, on March
22, 1933. Unlike what Allied propaganda would have us believe, the
Germans were not ashamed of this camp. In fact, Heinrich Himmler
held a press conference to announce its opening two days before
the first inmates were scheduled to arrive. His announcement was
carried in German newspapers,6 and the camp was opened with the
arrival of 200 communists. But the camp was built to hold 5,000
and was mainly established to act as a deterrent to further communist
activity.
Himmler stated that it
was his promise not to wait until crimes were committed before arresting
criminals, and pledged that, in order to protect the populace, professional
criminals who had been sentenced many times would be pursued more
ruthlessly than before and isolated away from the German people
by being incarcerated in concentration camps. Himmler also added
that his camps were to be models of cleanliness, order and instruction.
It was through this instruction that Himmler hoped to re-educate
mi nor criminals as well as communists. Him mler had ordered strong
disciplinary measures to be employed, but the treatment inmates
received was just, and they learned trades through their work and
training. In the concentration camps, the motto was: There is one
way to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, zeal, honesty, order,
cleanliness, temperance, truth, sense of sacrifice and love for
the Father land.?7
In the Soviet Unions
model of socialism, the German communists found what they were looking
for, liberalism, urbanism, and modernism. All of which rejected
the traditional Aryan-German way of life. For this reason, the German
communists looked at Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship
by President Paul von Hindenburg as a signal for an uprising aimed
at creating a German soviet state, closely modeled on the Soviet
Union and taking its orders from the Comintern in Moscow. But Hitler
saw the threat the communists posed to German society, and after
the burning of the Reichstag by a com munist, he reacted swiftly
to take them into custody. Hitler now decided to build the first
concentration camps.
However, instead of being
vindictive or out to do harm to the communists, the con centration
camp at Dachau was de signed to reform them and make them into citizens
that the Germans could be proud of citizens who could return to
German society at large and live out their lives as peaceful and
proper German men and women. Instead of being an institution aimed
at punishment, the German system of concentration camps was de signed
to reform and to re-educate enemies of the new German state.
A correspondent for The
New York Times was allowed to visit Dachau shortly after it was
opened and came away with the impression that the commandant of
the camp, Theodor Eicke, and the men under his command took their
job of re-education seriously. They honestly and sincerely believed
that their task was pedagogic rather than punitive. . . . They felt
sincerely sorry for the misguided non-Nazis who had not yet found
the true faith. Not only had the inmates not yet found faith in
the leadership of Adolf Hitler, but they also took part in or supported
subversive activities aimed at overthrowing the state.
An internal document
written in 1934 and circulated at Gestapo headquarters stated that
National Socialist Germany would not be complete until its opponents
learned to support it and identify with the goals of the German
community at large. The writer of the document reiterated the educational
value and ideological indoctrination that the camps were to instill
in the inmates, and suggested imbuing the inmates with the knowledge
that upon their release they would be able to become full members
of German society.
Just a short time later, another Ges tapo document warned all state
authorities not to harass released inmates so as not to make their
complete re-integration into German society difficult.
The Germans themselves
often re ferred to these camps as ?education camps. In the summer
of 1942, three years after World War II began, Himmler was still
emphasizing the re-educational aspects of the camps when he wrote
a letter to Oswald Pohl.11
The language that he used in this letter was also given as part
of official instructions to guards at the camps. Himmler instructed
each guard to make his behavior a personal example to the prisoners,
in order to imbue them with respect for the National Socialist state
and to teach them how to behave properly.12
This re-education at the camps was to stress traditional Aryan virtues,
such as hard work, strict discipline, a belief in law and order,
support for the complete family and respect for traditional German
society, as well as encouraging them to respect the National So
cialist state and the Nazi movement in general.
Over the years, tens
of thousands of inmates were released from the camps once they had
shown that they had chosen to reform themselves. On many occasions
the commandants of the camps had determined that inmates had abandoned
their old ways and had chosen to become loyal members of German
society. As late as October 1944, inmates were being re leased and
many of these were communists who had abandoned their previous beliefs.13
Of the persons sent to
the concentration camps, many were sent there by court order for
fixed terms. Other persons were arrested because of the danger they
presented to German society. Some prisoners, who had been convicted
during the Wei mar era, were sent to the concentration camps after
their release from prison.
Since some of these prisoners were murderers, rapists and pedophiles,
the Na tion al Socialist state refused to allow them to return to
German society until the authorities were sure that they had abandoned
their old ways. Contrary to modern political myth, German newspapers
frequently carried stories on the concentration camps and often
reported on the internment of dangerous persons.
Many of the camps were
open to inspection by foreign diplomats and even by German civilians.
Often the curious persons would travel to the camps only to be met
by friendly guards and escorted through the camps on a personal
tour. Of the tens of thousands of prisoners who were released, most
probably told their relatives, friends and neighbors of the conditions
present in the camps.
Over the years, judges, lawyers, members of the clergy, social workers
and repairmen were allowed into the camps for official business.
Merchants often visited the camps to bring new stocks of supplies,
and local civilians were often employed in the camps. If conditions
in the camps had been deplorable, German society would have learned
of it and would have been outraged. The Germans were and still are
a decent people whose only crime in establishing the camps was showing
len iency to persons who wanted to do them harm.
In a book written on
the camp established at Oranienburg, Werner Schafer claimed that
some citizens in the local communities asked permission to send
some of their rebelling children to the camps to learn self-discipline.
Schafer also said that there were some prisoners who were offered
release who refused since they could not remember doing work since
the beginning of the Great Depression.14 Schafer listed the types
of food eaten by the prisoners and computed how much weight they
had gained during their internment in the camp. Citizens of Na tional
Socialist Germany therefore had good reason to support the officials
who ad ministered the camps.
The nature of imprisonment
in concentration camps can best be guessed by a document signed
by Himmler, in which the principles of internment in a concentration
camp were clarified. The document was not meant for public distribution
and was classified ?secret? before be ing sent to senior officers
of the Gestapo on 27 May 1942. It reads:
Recently, various officials
in the party and the government have begun threatening to lodge
complaints with the police against citizens, or to have them imprisoned
in concentration camps, in order to give greater force to various
orders and decrees. In this manner, for instance, one officer threatened
a citizen that he would be sent to a camp for police interrogation,
if he did not produce within five days a certain form, as he had
been told to do by one of the officials. I request in all seriousness
that the parties involved be instructed to cease this practice immediately,
and if this is not done I will take upon myself to declare publicly
that citizens are not liable in such instances to either police
investigation or imprisonment in a concentration camp. The most
severe punishments lose their deterrent ability when they are threatened
at every opportunity, or when the impression is given that every
official, in every office, is authorized to make use of it.
Imprisonment in a concentration
camp, involving as it does separation from one's family, isolation
from the outside world, and the hard labor assigned to the prisoner,
is the most severe of punishments. Its use is reserved exclusively
for the secret police, in accordance with precise regulations which
specify the form of imprisonment and its term. In this matter I
have retained for myself a large measure of authority and exclusive
discretion. All in all the German people are uniquely fair-minded.
Most Germans obey the instructions of the authorities of their own
free will and desire. Instructions accompanied by threats will,
however, be received with disrespect and will be obeyed only unwillingly,
not to mention that the multiplication of threats of this type will
give a completely false impression, both here and abroad.15
Not only does this document
illuminate the fact that the concentration camp system was not vindictive
or there to terrorize the civilian population, but it also shows
that the leaders of the state had concern for the prisoners. Himmler
recognized that imprisonment involved isolation and separation from
loved one's and was determined to allow the German people to know
that the only persons imprisoned in the camps were extreme cases.
But more importantly, as the value of hindsight allows us to, the
document also allows us to understand where some of the Allied propaganda
came from; minor officials were eager to add threats to their orders
in an attempt to give the impression that they were more powerful
than they actually were. Because of the actions of these minor officials,
the Allies had the propaganda to claim that the concentration camps
were there to terrorize the civilian population and to force them
to become subservient to a state that only cared about itself. This
was exactly what Himmler was afraid would happen, that the concentration
camps would be seen to be a punitive punishment and not the center
of re-education that they really were.
To meet the needs of
re-education, the camp command in each camp was divided into several
departments, which dealt with matters of administration, personnel,
transport, communications, mail, equipment, kitchen work, supplies,
health and sanitation and so forth. The camp commandants were assisted
by a deputy, an adjutant, a master sergeant, a medical officer and
education officer, a legal officer, a fire officer and others. The
commandants were helped personally responsible for the re-education
of those prisoners who were not considered to be ?lost cases.? Because
the camps were often open for public inspections, the commandants
were also required to have some amount of political sensitivity.
Starting in 1942, the commandants were also responsible for the
work of the camp doctor and the medical staff.
The camp commandants
had full responsibility for almost everything that happened in the
camps, except for the work of the political departments. The political
department operated in the camp as an extension of the Gestapo,
and a plain clothes officer of the secret police headed it. This
department dealt with the reception and registration of inmates,
and was also in charge of their release. This department:
Kept files on each inmate
that included personal details about the inmate, the inmate?s picture
and fingerprints;
Was responsible for filing
death no tices and was responsible for passing this information
on to government authorities;
Corresponded with the
relatives of the inmates in cases where there was a need for guardianship
of underage children, insurance claims and so forth;Had the authority
to decree special conditions of imprisonment;
Was responsible for all interrogation that went on in the camps;
and,
Supervised prisoner informers,
censorship, field security, and the prevention of rebellion.
Not all members of the
command had direct and daily contact with the inmates. The inmates
were kept in a special compound within the camps, overseen by their
own commanding officer and his staff. Some staff officers were responsible
for head counts, others for work arrangements; others actually accompanied
prisoners when they went out to work, while other officers were
responsible for each of the living quarters, which were themselves
referred to as a block. The personal deputy of the camp commandant
usually oversaw the prisoner division of the camp.
The camp commandants
were also required to prevent cruelty to inmates. A training manual
for camp guards asked the following question: What is completely
prohibited a camp guard? Answer: Un der all circumstances he is
forbidden to strike prisoners at his own initiative, outside the
framework of the disciplinary regulations.
In 1935 Reinhard Heydrich
wrote to the camp guards stating that ?it is not becoming an interrogator
to insult a prisoner, demean him, or behave with rudeness and brutalize
or torture him when there is no need to do so.
Heydrich went on and warned the camp men that if they beat prisoners
they would be court-martialed. 16 Eicke himself wrote in 1937 that
?the guards should be instructed to ab stain from mistreating prisoners.
. . . Even if a guard had done no more than slap a prisoner?s face,
the slap will be considered an act of brutality and the guard will
be punished.
The SS actually punished
a number of its own men for their conduct while serving in the concentration
camps. Two concentration camp commandants, Adam Gruenwald and Karl
Chmielewshi, were placed on trial and found guilty of the deaths
of prisoners as a result of brutality in their camps. The SS tried
over 700 staff members throughout the course of the Third Reich
for their conduct toward inmates. This was because the SS and the
National Socialist state always considered concentration camps to
be re-education camps first and foremost.
It is true that persons
who were considered to be hopeless cases such as habitual offenders
were sent to the camps, but most prisoners always could earn their
release by conforming to traditional Aryan-German standards of conduct.
Un fortunately, many guards could not tell the difference between
the habitual criminals and those who were there to be re-educated.
This problem plagued the camp administration throughout the history
of the Third Reich.
Oswald Pohl complained
that ?As a result of my personal attention to the matter, and the
repeated irregularities recently noted, I have learned that many
of the guards at the camps are aware only in the faintest way of
the obligations imposed upon them.?18
But historians must take
into consideration the fact that tens of thousands of individuals
served in the camps. If 700 committed crimes and were punished for
it, it only highlights the fact that the other tens of thousands
of Germans serving in the camps took their responsibilities seriously.
Most camp men understood that their personal behavior was a way
of encouraging inmates to aspire to be up standing and proud citizens
of Ger many. According to an SS booklet: ?The prisoner must know
that the guard represents a philosophy superior to his, an unblemished
political approach and a higher moral level, and the prisoner must
take these as a personal example as part of his efforts to correct
himself so that he may once again be a loyal citizen in his community.?19
In April 1939, Adolf
Hitler celebrated his 50th birthday. To celebrate this occasion,
plans were drawn up for a pardon for several thousand prisoners
in the camps. The instructions that determined who was to be freed
and who would remain as an inmate reveal the different kinds of
prisoners in the camps as well as revealing Hitler?s generosity
and good will. The intention of the pardon was to free inmates who
were brought to the camps in 1933, six years before.
It was determined to
at least consider releasing repeat offenders who were arrested in
the years 1933 to 1934 for short sentences and who had at least
served a year in the camps; political and white-collar offenders
who had been convicted on minor offenses and who had served at least
six months; prisoners of 60 or more years of age, including Jehovah?s
Witnesses whose faith would not allow them to swear loyalty to the
German state; first-time homosexuals who had not been convicted
of sexual relations with minors; as well as prisoners who had in
the past been members of the Nazi Party.
Then in 1941 the camps
were classified into four groups, in accordance with the severity
of the discipline and conditions of imprisonment imposed upon the
inmates. Those prisoners who had been imprisoned for minor offenses
and whom the SS considered to be possible to re-educate had the
conditions of their imprisonment eased.
The workdays in the camps
were formalized in 1938. On weekdays, the in mates worked from 0730
to 1200 and from 1230 to 1700, for a total of nine hours a day.
On Saturdays work was from 0730-1200, for a total of four and one-half
hours. Not only were Saturday afternoons free, but Christian inmates
had all of Sunday to attend their own services within the camp and
to contemplate the reasons for their imprisonment.21
Inside the camp, the
barracks were segregated by sex, but in many cases prisoners were
allowed to marry, even to other prisoners. Registration in such
cases was carried out by SS officers.22
The heirs of any prisoner who died while being held at one of the
camps were eligible to collect their life insurance. Since the life
insurance policies would expire if the premiums were not paid, and
the inmates were incarcerated and without any substantial income,
the SS came up with a solution that Establishment historians will
not give them credit for. The SS set up its own fund to pay the
insurance premiums of prisoners until the day they died.23 In this
way, the loved ones of incarcerated in mates would not be overly
burdened if their relative died while in custody.
In 1936, the question
was raised for the first time as to who would take care of the children
when both parents were prisoners in concentration camps. Instead
of taking the children away from their loving parents as is now
done in such countries such as the U.S. and Great Bri tain, the
National Socialist authorities in Germany decided it would be better
for the children if the parents were released on a rotating monthly
basis so at least one parent would always be there to care for their
needs. This rotating release continued until one of the parents
was released for good.24
Needless to say, this
program did pose a slight security risk to Germany, but Hitler apparently
was more concerned about the welfare of young German children than
he was with anything else.
Even though Allied war-time
propaganda concerning the German concentration camps paints a bleak
picture with ritual murder, rape, assault and other crimes, the
facts of the period do not support this view.
The efforts of the National
Socialist au th orities to rehabilitate and re-educate in carcerated
criminals and communists show a dedication and a firm belief in
their convictions that in comparison, the United States and Great
Britain are sorely lacking in their own prison administrations.
Those Germans, tens of thousands of patriotic citizens, who served
in the camps as doctors, nurses, cooks, clerks, bookkeepers, and
guards, were much maligned and viciously attacked by Allied authorities
in post-war Germany.
FOOTNOTES
1 See Pierre Hofstetter,
Introduction to Paul Rassinier, Debunking the Genocide Myth: A Study
of the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Alleged Extermination of
European Jewry (1978, Torrance, California), p. x.
2 Heinz Hoehne, The Order
of the Death's Head, (1966, New York), p. 225.
3 Ibid., p.226.
4 Ibid., quoted in, p.
226.
5 Max Domarius, Hitler
Reden, vol. 3, R. Loweit, Wiesbaden, 1973, p. 58.
6 Becker, Hitlers Machtergreifung,
pp. 149-50.
7 Ibid., Frs. 2494-5.
8 "Nazi Prison Camps
to be Permanent," The New York Times, July 27, 1933, p.7.
9 BAKO R 58/264 fol.
1309 u. 198a.
10 Ibid.
11 BAKO NS 19 320, May
29, 1942.
12 BAKO NS 3 426, July
27, 1943.
13 BAKO NS 3 vol. 401.
14 Schafer, Konzentrationslager
Oranien burg, p.247.
15 BAKO R 58 1027 fol.
1-291.
16 BAKO R 58 264 fol.
309 u. 198a RSHA, January 8, 1935.
17 TV Befehlblatter 1937,
no. 5, p. 12, TV file, Berlin Document Center.
18 BAKO NS 3 442, November
7, 1944.
19 Aufgaben und Pflichten
der Wachposten, July 27, 1943, BAKO NS 3 426.
20 BAKO R 58/1027 fold.
1-291.
21 Natzweiler Routine
Orders, February 25, 1943, American Historical Association, Captured
German Documents Microfiled at the Berlin Document Center, 7. 75
R. 216 2/755081.
22 BAKO NS 3 Vol. 426,
May 1943.
23 Weiterversicherung
von Haftlingen, BAKO NS 3 405.
24 BAKO R 58 246 fol.
1 309 u. 198a. (RSHA), April 21, 1936.
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