58. For these calls, see Gruchmann, Justiz, 573–74.
59. IfZ, Fa 183/1, Bl. 269: Wagner to Frank, March 13, 1933. See also Bauer et al., München, 231.
60. For the diversity of early camps, see Benz and Distel, Terror; idem, Herrschaft; idem, Gewalt.
61. Baganz, Erziehung, 87–88.
62. For SA Sturmlokale of the Weimar years, see Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 449–62.
63. Quote in Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 56.
64. Across Saxony alone, for example, well over thirty such camps were set up in 1933; Baganz, Erziehung, 24, 78–81.
65. Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 19, 23–24, 56–60; Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 468–75. For details of the Berlin elections, see “Wahl zum Deutschen Reichstag in Berlin am 5.3.1933,” sent by Landeswahlleiterin Berlin to the author, October 4, 2011.
66. USHMM, RG-11.001M.20, reel 91, 1367–2–33, Bl. 19–20: Bericht Justizrat Broh, n.d. For Broh, see Liebersohn and Schneider, “My Life,” 47. Broh’s abuse escalated because of his Jewish origins.
67. This point has been made, above all, in Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 38–42. See also idem, “Organisationsgeschichte,” 12–13. For torture and “confessions,” see Diercks, “Fuhlsbüttel,” 286–87; Roth, “Folterstätten,” 16–17; LG Nuremberg-Fürth, Urteil, November 29, 1948, JNV, vol. 3, 580–82.
68. Dörner, “Ein KZ.”
69. Seger, “Oranienburg” (first published in 1934), quotes on pages 26–27. See also Drobisch, “Oranienburg,” 18. For other camps, see Drobisch and Wieland, System, 108–14; Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 74, 121–32; Baganz, Erziehung, 159–71; Rudorff, “‘Privatlager,’” 158–60.
70. For the figure, Morsch, Oranienburg, 220.
71. Améry, Jenseits (first published in 1966), 47.
72. Langhoff, Moorsoldaten, 162. For other examples, see ibid., 70, 77, 88–89, 195.
73. For background, see Goffman, Asylums.
74. For violence as a form of communication, see Keller, Volksgemeinschaft, 422.
75. Quotes in Burkhard, Tanz, 22. For other examples, see JVL, JAO, Review of Proceedings, United States v. Weiss, n.d. (1946), 29.
76. Mailänder Koslov, Gewalt, 418.
77. Seger, “Oranienburg,” 57; Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 120.
78. Neurath, Gesellschaft (completed in 1943), 30–37.
79. Ibach, Kemna, 18. For the abuse of women, see Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 80, 101.
80. Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 125, 137–46. See also Bernhard, “Konzentrierte,” 235–36.
81. For the Dachau case, see DaA, 550, M. Grünwiedl, “Dachauer Gefangene erzählen,” summer 1934, 20; Zámečník, Dachau, 46. For other examples, see USHMM, RG-11.001M.20, reel 91, 1367–2–33, Bl. 19–20: Bericht Justizrat Broh, n.d.; Abraham, “Juda,” 131–33.
82. Bendig, “Unter Regie,” 100; Rudorff, “Misshandlung,” 51–52; Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 117; USHMM, RG-11.001M.20, reel 91, 1367–2–33, Bl. 2: Bericht aus Staaken, n.d.; Baganz, Erziehung, 133–35.
83. For exceptions, see Rudorff, “Misshandlung,” 42.
84. Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 112–13; Baganz, Erziehung, 151.
85. StAMü, StA Nr. 34479/1, Bl. 93–97: Lebenslauf H. Steinbrenner, n.d. (c. late 1940s). See also Dillon, “Dachau,” 57, 59, 141.
86. Some unemployed SA men did petition the authorities for employment in local camps; Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 142.
87. Dillon, “Dachau,” 45, 141; Baganz, Erziehung, 149; Stokes, “Das oldenburgische Konzentrationslager,” 190–96; Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 330–31; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 54; Tooze, Wages, 48, table 1.
88. Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 117–18; Baganz, Erziehung, 152; Lüerßen, “‘Moorsoldaten,’” 177. On remuneration, see Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 73; BArchL, B 162/7998, Bl. 623–44: Vernehmung J. Otto, April 1, 1970, Bl. 623–24.
89. For the term “superfluous generation,” see Peukert, Weimar, 18, 89–95. More generally, see Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 384–86, 703–707. For the guards’ background, see Dillon, “Dachau,” 29–30; Krause-Vilmar, Breitenau, 147–48; Diercks, “Fuhlsbüttel,” 275; Lechner, “Konzentrationslager,” 89–90.
90. Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 697–99, 712, 719; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 96.
91. Schäfer, Konzentrationslager, 21. More generally, see Dillon, “Dachau,” 39–40; Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 617–24; Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 48–50.
92. For flags, see Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 123. For the relation between total power and abuse more generally, see Zimbardo, Lucifer, 187.
93. Baganz, Erziehung, 97–98, quote on 189.
94. Ecker, “Hölle,” 25. For some examples, see Stokes, “Das oldenburgische Konzentrationslager,” 196; Ibach, Kemna, 22; Morsch, “Oranienburg—Sachsenhausen,” 121–22.
95. Dillon, “Dachau,” 47–51; Knop et al., “Häftlinge,” 47–48; Wohlfeld, “Nohra,” 116–17.
96. Dillon, “Dachau,” 67–68. See also Wachsmann, Prisons, 36; ITS, ARCH/HIST/KL Kislau, Bl. 59–72: Wachvorschrift, July 12, 1933.
97. Seger, “Oranienburg,” 28–30; Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 63, 65, 89, 93, 138.
98. Arendt, “Concentration Camps,” 758.
99. For figures from individual camps, see Drobisch and Wieland, System, 127–31; Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 147–52.
100. Quotes in Mühsam, Leidensweg, 25; Suhr, Ossietzky, 203. More generally, Nürnberg, “Außenstelle”; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 55; Hett, Crossing, 161; Litten, Mutter, 18; Hohengarten, Massaker, 13.
101. Mühsam, Leidensweg, 26, 29; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 55; Hett, Crossing, 71, 162–63; Suhr, Ossietzky, 203; Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 39. For camp guards’ hatred of intellectuals, see also Kautsky, Teufel, 75–76.
102. Quotes in Litten, Mutter, 22; Mühsam, Leidensweg, 30. See also ibid., 27–29; Suhr, Ossietzky, 203–205; Buck, “Ossietzky,” 22; Braunbuch (first published in 1933), 287; Hett, Crossing, 163.
103. Quotes in Abraham, “Juda,” 135. See also ibid., 135–36; Seger, “Oranienburg,” 51–54 (stating that the two men were not abused on the day of their arrival); BArchB, R 43 II/398, Bl. 99: Gestapa to RK, September 27, 1933; Büro, Reichstagshandbuch 1933, 121; Danckwortt, “Jüdische ‘Schutzhäftlinge,’” 154–55. On alerts about impending transports, see Lüerßen, “‘Moorsoldaten,’” 169. For forced labor of prominent prisoners, see Kienle, “Heuberg,” 54; Rudorff, “‘Privatlager,’” 163.
104. Hans Litten, who embraced his Jewish roots, would have been officially classified as a “half Jew” under the later Nuremberg Laws (his mother was Protestant, his father had converted from Judaism to Protestantism); Hett, Crossing, 7.
105. Quote in Kraiker, Suhr, Ossietzky, 103.
106. For the estimate, see Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 86, 89.
107. The summer 1933 census recorded some five hundred thousand persons of Jewish faith in the German Reich, making up 0.77 percent of the population; Friedländer, Nazi Germany, 15, 338. Nazi statisticians put the figure higher, adding German Jews who had converted or had no religious affiliation.
108. Based on the assumption that up to two hundred thousand prisoners went through the early camps in 1933.
109. In 1932, not one KPD Reichstag deputy was Jewish; Friedländer, Nazi Germany, 106.
110. Saxon Ministry of the Interior to police departments, April 18, 1933, cited in Wünschmann, “Cementing,” 583 (emphasis in the original). For the detention of Jewish lawyers, see Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 52.
111. SA-Gruppe Berlin-Brandenburg, Gruppenbefehl Nr. 28, May 24, 1933, cited in Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 99.
112. For the detention of German Jews on nonpolitical grounds, see Wünschmann, “‘Natürlich,’” 100–103.
113. For the anti-
Semitism of SA and SS men, see Reichardt, Kampfbünde, 631–43; Szende, Zwischen, 40–41.
114. Quote in Beimler, Mörderlager, 28. More generally, see Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 76, 82–83, 95.
115. Quote in report by R. Weinmann, November 13, 1933, NCC, doc. 30. More generally, Sofsky, Violence, 168.
116. Quote in StAMü, StA Nr. 34479/1, Bl. 93–97: Lebenslauf H. Steinbrenner, n.d. (c. late 1940s), Bl. 94. For the other examples, see Mühsam, Leidensweg, 27; Megargee, Encyclopedia, vol. I/A, 51.
117. Quotes in Abraham, “Juda,” 135–36. For torture through forced labor in other early camps, see Endlich, “Lichtenburg,” 30–31; Lüerßen, “‘Moorsoldaten,’” 169; Meyer and Roth, “Zentrale,” 207–208; NCC, doc. 30.
118. Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 89, 95–101. See also Meyer and Roth, “Zentrale,” 191–92, 200.
119. Quotes in Dr. Mittelbach to Daluege, April 10, 1933, in Michaelis and Schraepler, Ursachen, vol. 9, 360–62; Litten, Mutter, 29. See also Mühsam, Leidensweg, 29–31; Hett, Crossing, 164, 171.
120. Quote in Graf, “Genesis,” 424. See also ibid., 423–24; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 54–55, 57, 62–65; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 55.
121. Wohlfeld, “Nohra,” 110–13, 119–20.
122. Drobisch and Wieland, System, 42, 135; Baganz, Erziehung, 218–21; Roth, “Folterstätten,” 18.
123. Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, vol. 1, 171; Kershaw, Hubris, 501–502.
124. Drobisch and Wieland, System, 134.
125. Meyer and Roth, “Zentrale,” 189–91; NCC, doc. 7.
126. For example, see Kienle, “Konzentrationslager”; Baganz, Erziehung, 108–13, 225.
127. For the figures, see Drobisch and Wieland, System, 66; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 155.
128. Prussia held 14,906 out of 26,789 prisoners on July 31, 1933; BArchB, R 43 II/398, Bl. 92.
129. MdI Preußen to Regierungspräsident Osnabrück, June 22, 1933, in Kosthorst and Walter, Strafgefangenenlager, vol. 1, 59–61.
130. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 60–69.
131. PMI to Provincial Administrations, October 14, 1933, NCC, doc. 14. See also Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 71.
132. Nürnberg, “Außenstelle,” 88.
133. Bendig, “‘Höllen,’” 186; Mühsam, Leidensweg, 32.
134. Mette, “Lichtenburg,” 132–35.
135. For the Emsland camps, see below.
136. Hesse, “‘Erziehung,’” 122–27. The circular of October 14, 1933, recognized only one more camp, the Provincial Institution Brauweiler; PMI to Provincial Administrations, October 14, 1933, NCC, doc. 14. For other camps under Prussian district administrators, Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 76.
137. PMI to Provincial Administrations, October 14, 1933, NCC, doc. 14.
138. Jenner, “Trägerschaft,” 125; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 135.
139. PMI to Provincial Administrations, October 14, 1933, NCC, doc. 14.
140. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 49–50, 73–76, 78–80. SS units also arrived in regional camps like Moringen and Brauweiler; Hesse, “‘Erziehung,’” 122; Wisskirchen, “Schutzhaft,” 140.
141. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 80. In Brauweiler, by contrast, the civilian director apparently kept the SS guards under control; Wisskirchen, “Schutzhaft,” 140–41.
142. SA Gruppenführer Ernst to Preußisches MdI, September 8, 1933, in Michaelis and Schraepler, Ursachen, vol. 9, 367–68; HIA, DD 253/K 769, B. Köhler, “In eigener Sache,” 1934, 96–97; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 77.
143. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 76–77, 92–93; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 68–69; Mayer-von Götz, Terror, 164–67.
144. Rudorff, “Misshandlung.”
145. Göring to inspector of the Prussian secret state police, March 11, 1934, NCC, doc. 21.
146. Niederschrift der Reichsstatthalterkonferenz vom 22.3.1934, in Repgen and Booms, Akten, vol. I/2, 1200.
147. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 85–89, 95; Graf, “Genesis,” 424.
148. The best accounts of the early Emsland camps are Lüerßen, “‘Wir’”; Klausch, Tätergeschichten.
149. For this and the previous paragraph, Langhoff, Moorsoldaten, 118–31, 136–37, 165, quote on 129. See also Lüerßen, “‘Wir,’” 52–55, 344–45; Abraham, “Juda,” 147–48; Knoch, “Konzentrationslager,” 292.
150. Lüerßen, “‘Moorsoldaten,’” 157–61.
151. OdT, vol. 1, 211–12.
152. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 103.
153. Himmler speech at a Wehrmacht course, January 15 to 23, 1937, NCC, doc. 83. For this and the previous paragraph, see ibid., doc. 135; Lüerßen, “‘Wir,’” 96–102; Wachsmann, Prisons, 98, 102–103; Patel, Soldiers, 296–300.
154. Quote in Langhoff, Moorsoldaten, 200–201. See also Lüerßen, “‘Wir,’” 96, 102–105; Fackler, “Lagers Stimme,” 142, 245–51.
155. Lüerßen, “‘Wir,’” 56–58, 76–86, 467–68; Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 30, 67–68, 266; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 80.
156. Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 163–66; Knoch, “‘Stupider Willkür,’” 35–36.
157. For this and the previous paragraph, see Langhoff, Moorsoldaten, 171, 234–43; Abraham, “Juda,” 148–52; Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 82–90, 95–97; Diekmann and Wettig, Oranienburg, 109; Schumacher, M.d.R., 175–78. Quotes in LG Oldenburg, Anklage gegen Johannes K., 1948, in Kosthorst and Walter, Strafgefangenenlager, vol. 1, 68; NLA-StAO, 140–45, Nr. 1154, Vernehmung F. Ebert, June 11, 1949.
158. LG Oldenburg, Urteil 1949, in Kosthorst and Walter, Strafgefangenenlager, vol. 1, 79–84; Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 34. For the 1932 riot, see Evans, Coming, 285.
159. WL, P.III.h. No. 280, A. Benjamin, “KZ Papenburg und Lichtenburg,” c. 1934, quote on 5. See also Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 95–99, 166; Mette, “Lichtenburg,” 133–37; Abraham, “Juda,” 157–61.
160. Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 108–14, 206–12, 230–31.
161. Ibid., 281–86.
162. Hett, Crossing, 200–201, 216–17; Buck, “Ossietzky,” 22–23; Kraiker and Suhr, Ossietzky, 108; Suhr, Ossietzky, 208–211; Lüerßen, “‘Moorsoldaten,’” 196.
163. Klausch, Tätergeschichten, 284–85.
164. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 142–43; NSDAP Reichsleitung, Rundschreiben, December 27, 1933, in IfZ, Akten, vol. 2, 42.
165. Quote in Breitman and Aronson, “Himmler-Rede,” 344. In his speech, Himmler gives the date of his appointment as March 12. He was actually appointed on the evening of March 9, 1933; Longerich, Himmler, 158–59. For Heydrich, see Gerwarth, Heydrich.
166. Longerich, Himmler, especially pages 158–60, 759–63. More generally on Himmler’s early political career, see Mües-Baron, Himmler.
167. “Ein Konzentrationslager für politische Gefangene,” Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, March 21, 1933, partial translation NCC, doc. 5. See also BArchB, R 2/28350, Chronik der SS-Lageranlage in Dachau, March 1, 1938. For state prisoners in 1932, BayHStA, MJu 22663.
168. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 153–55; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 51. On August 1, 1933, Dachau held 2,218 of all 4,152 Bavarian protective custody prisoners; Aronson, Heydrich, 325.
169. Rubner, “Dachau,” 56–59; Ecker, “Hölle,” 30; DaA, 550, M. Grünwiedl, “Dachauer Gefangene erzählen,” summer 1934, 4; Zámečník, Dachau, 51–52; Richardi, Schule, 65–66. For a map, Comité, Dachau (2005), CD-Rom.
170. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 125; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 51–52; Richardi, Schule, 54–56; Dillon, “Dachau,” 51, 67, 139, 155.
171. StAMü, StA Nr. 34479/1, Bl. 93–97: Lebenslauf H. Steinbrenner, n.d. (c. late 1940s), Bl. 94. See also DaA, 550, M. Grünwiedl, “Dachauer Gefangene erzählen,” summer 1934, 3.
172. Tuchel, “Kommandanten des KZ Dachau,” 331–32; Internationales Zentrum, Nazi-Bastille, 20.
173. Richardi, Schule, 58; Orth, SS, 99.
174. Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” quotes on pages 90–91. See also Wünschmann, “Jewi
sh Prisoners,” 79–80.
175. Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 103. See also Dillon, “Dachau,” 156, 164.
176. Estimate based on figures in Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 76–77; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 51.
177. Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 81–92, quotes on pages 90, 120.
178. Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 83–84; idem, “Jüdische politische Häftlinge.”
179. Special regulations for the Dachau camp, May 1933, NCC, doc. 8.
180. Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 79, 91–96. For the quote, Himmler speech at SS Gruppenführer conference, February 18, 1937, NCC, doc. 98.
181. For this and the previous paragraph, Gruchmann, Justiz, 634–39; Richardi, Schule, 97–113; StAMü, StA Nr. 34479/1, Bl. 93–97: Lebenslauf H. Steinbrenner, n.d. (c. late 1940s), Bl. 95.
182. For the paragraphs on Eicke, see especially Segev, Soldiers, 137–55, Bürckel quote on 142; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 128–41. See also BArchB (ehem. BDC), SSO, Eicke, Theodor, 17.10.1892; Longerich, Himmler, 162–63; extracts of testimony of O. Pohl, 1947, TWC, vol. 5, 437; Koehl, Black Corps, 232; Bernhard, “Konzentrierte,” 237. For a biography, focusing on the period until 1934, see Weise, Eicke. For Eicke’s cigar, see MacLean, Camp, 306–307.
183. Dillon, “Dachau,” 56, 59–60, 69, 157–59, 191, 198, 213, 235, quote on 197. According to his postwar testimony, Steinbrenner left Dachau around mid-July 1933, returning in autumn as an instructor and later an office worker in the Guard Troop; StAMü, StA Nr. 28791/28, Bl. 39–41: Vernehmungsniederschrift H. Steinbrenner, May 12, 1949.
184. Richardi, Schule, 179–80. For Wessel, see Siemens, Making.
185. Burkhard, Tanz, 37–40; Ecker, “Hölle,” 34; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 143.
186. Disziplinar- u. Strafordnung Dachau, October 1, 1933, IMT, vol. 26, 291–96, ND: 778–PS, emphasis in the original. The translation draws on NCC, doc. 150. See also Drobisch and Wieland, System, 79–80.
187. Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 84.
188. Quote in Vermerk Dr. Stepp, December 6, 1933, IMT, vol. 36, 54–55, ND: 926–D. See also Gruchmann, Justiz, 640–45; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 141.
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