KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

by Nikolaus Wachsmann

  3. Expansion

      1. Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 65, 80; Jahn, Buchenwald!, 53–56; StW, “Mörder Bargatzky zum Tode verurteilt,” Allg. Thüringische Landeszeitung, May 28, 1938. The spelling of Bargatzky’s name varies; I follow his birth certificate.

      2. On Eicke and escapes, Broszat, Kommandant, 127–28; Dienstvorschriften Dachau, October 1, 1933, IMT, vol. 26, 296, ND: 778–PS.

      3. Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 70–73; BArchB, NS 19/1542, Bl. 3–4: Himmler to Gürtner, May 16, 1938; Deutschland-Berichte, vol. 5, 869; Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 200–201.

      4. StW, “Mörder Bargatzky zum Tode verurteilt,” Allg. Thüringische Landeszeitung, May 28, 1938; Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 65–66, 73–74.

      5. BArchB, NS 19/1542, Bl. 8: Himmler to Gürtner, May 31, 1938.

      6. BwA, 31/450, Bericht E. Frommhold, n.d. (1945), 41–42; Schrade, Elf Jahre, 146; Berke, Buchenwald, 91–92; ITS, 1.1.5.3/BARE-BARR/00009874/0009. On foreign reports, see Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 201.

      7. BArchB, NS 19/1542, Eicke to RFSS-Kommandohaus, June 3, 1938; ibid., Bl. 13: H. Potthast to Dr. Brandt, June 4, 1938; Berke, Buchenwald, 91. The men taken for execution to Dachau during the 1934 Röhm purge had not been inmates of the camp. For executions in the early modern period, see Evans, Rituals, 73–77.

      8. “Er fiel für uns!,” Das schwarze Korps, May 26, 1938. See also Dillon, “Dachau,” 166–67; Zeck, Korps.

      9. Burkhard, Tanz, 119; DaA, 9438, A. Hübsch, “Insel des Standrechts” (1961), 82–83.

    10. Jahn, Buchenwald!, 54–56; Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 68–70; BArchB, NS 19/1542, Bl. 3–4: Himmler to Gürtner, May 16, 1938; Stein, Juden, 16.

    11. Stein, Juden, 21.

    12. VöB, May 17, 1938, cited in Gruchmann, Justiz, 652.

    13. BArchB, NS 19/1542, Bl. 3–4: Himmler to Gürtner, May 16, 1938. See also ITS, 1.1.5.3/BARE-BARR/00009874/0024, Eicke to Himmler, July 5, 1938; Stein, Juden, 15; Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 70.

    14. BwA, Totenbuch. In 1938, the IKL warned commandants about a new judicial office investigating shootings; IKL to KL, July 27, 1938, NCC, doc. 132.

    15. BArchB, NS 19/4004, Bl. 278–351: Rede bei der SS Gruppenführerbesprechung, November 8, 1937, Bl. 293.

    16. For the figures, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, Buchenwald, 698; DaA, ITS, Vorläufige Ermittlung der Lagerstärke (1971); OdT, vol. 4, 22; Endlich, “Lichtenburg,” 23; Morsch and Ley, Sachsenhausen, 54.

    17. Drobisch and Wieland, System, 289, 337.

    18. OdT, vol. 3, 33.

    19. Neugebauer, “Österreichertransport,” quote on 201. See also Ungar, “Konzentrationslager,” 198–99; Kripoleitstelle Vienna, “Transporte von Schutzhäftlingen,” April 1, 1938, in Neugebauer and Schwarz, Stacheldraht, 17; Wünschmann, “Jewish Prisoners,” 173.

    20. Riedel, Ordnungshüter, 197–98; DaA, 9438, A. Hübsch, “Insel des Standrechts” (1961), 113.

    21. Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 66–67, 74–79, 80–81, quote on 77.

    22. Zámečník, Dachau, 102; Poller, Arztschreiber, 193; Wünschmann, Before Auschwitz, chapter 6.

    23. Wachsmann, “Policy,” 133–35.

    24. Many political prisoners believed that the Nazi regime wanted to humiliate and defame them by detaining them together with social outsiders (Kogon, Theory, 37). This claim was later taken over by historians in East and West Germany (Kühnrich, KZ-Staat, 58; Richardi, Schule, 226–27; Baganz, Erziehung, 61–62, 145–46). For a critical survey of the historiography, Ayaß, “Schwarze und grüne Winkel.”

    25. A 1990 scholarly survey of various KL victims still ignored “asocials” and “criminals”; Feig, “Non-Jewish Victims.”

    26. Herbert et al., “Konzentrationslager,” 26–28; Herbert, “Gegnerbekämpfung”; Orth, SS, 148–50, 298.

    27. For the different means used to detain social outsiders in the KL, see Hörath, “Terrorinstrument.”

    28. “Der neue Geist im Münchner Polizeipräsidium,” VöB, March 15, 1933.

    29. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 157, 209, 312.

    30. Zámečník, Dachau, 57; Rubner, “Dachau,” 67.

    31. Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 19–41.

    32. There were 2,592 inmates in Bavaria (including 142 workhouse prisoners from Rebdorf held at Dachau), 2,009 of them accused of political offenses; figures (mostly for April 10, 1934) in Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 155–56; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 105. For the classification of Rebdorf prisoners as work-shy, see MdI to Ministry of Finance, August 17, 1934, NCC, doc. 232.

    33. BayHStA, Staatskanzlei 6299/1, Bl. 174–77: Reichstatthalter to MPr, March 20, 1934.

    34. BayHStA, Staatskanzlei 6299/1, Bl. 132–41: MdI to MPr, April 14, 1934, translation in NCC, doc. 23.

    35. For the view that Himmler’s assault on social outsiders in Bavaria was exceptional, OdT, vol. 1, 55–56.

    36. Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 31–32, quote on 31; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 71; Hörath, “Terrorinstrument,” 516–18, 525; Harris, “Role,” 678; Diercks, “Fuhlsbüttel,” 266, 278. For the influx of “beggars” into existing camps, see Stokes, “Eutiner,” 619–20; Wollenberg, “Ahrensbök-Holstendorf,” 228.

    37. Wachsmann, Prisons, 49–54, 128–37.

    38. Quotes in Prussian MdI decree, November 13, 1933, NCC, doc. 16. See also Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 198–200; Terhorst, Vorbeugungshaft, 74–80.

    39. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 200–203; Mette, “Lichtenburg,” 141. On May 25, 1934, 257 of all 439 Lichtenburg prisoners were classified as “professional criminals.”

    40. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 204–209; Roth, “Kriminalpolizei,” 332–33; OdT, vol. 2, 541; Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 58; BArchB, R 3001/alt R 22/1469, Bl. 24: “Erfolg der Vorbeugungshaft,” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, October 24, 1935; ibid. (ehem. BDC), SSO, Loritz, Hans, 21.12.1895, Personal-Bericht, Stellungnahme Eicke, July 31, 1935.

    41. Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 58–60; Hörath, “Terrorinstrument,” 523.

    42. Quote in Bavarian Gestapo to KL Dachau, July 10, 1936, NCC, doc. 97. See also ITS, ARCH/HIST/KL Dachau 4 (200), Bl. 15: KL Dachau to IKL, June 19, 1936; IMT, vol. 31, EE by M. Lex, November 16, 1945, ND: 2928–PS.

    43. Police Directorate Bremen, November 23, 1935, NCC, doc. 253.

    44. The SS classified another 950 prisoners as “political” and 85 as “returned emigrant Jews”; NAL, FO 371/18882, Bl. 386–90: Appendix A, Visit to Dachau, July 31, 1935. According to the German Foreign Office, 1,067 “professional criminals” and other “asocial elements” were detained in the KL on November 1, 1936 (excluding homosexuals), making up more than twenty-two percent of the prisoner population; StANü, Auswärtigs Amt to Missionen et al., December 8, 1936, ND: NG-4048.

    45. Wachsmann, “Dynamics,” 24.

    46. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 235–43.

    47. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 235, 254–57, quotes on 254; Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 60–63; Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 66. Himmler met Eicke on March 10, 1937, the day after the raids; IfZ, F 37/19, Himmler diary. Up to thirty women were arrested as “professional criminals” and taken to Moringen.

    48. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 254–55. More generally, see Herbert, Best, 174–75.

    49. Speech at SS Gruppenführer conference, November 8, 1937, NCC, doc. 94.

    50. Hörath, “Experimente,” chapters 4 and 8. For the modern school of criminal law, see Wachsmann, Prisons, 20–22.

    51. It has been suggested that Himmler wanted to gain more forced laborers for the construction and extension of the KL (Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 255). This is unlikely to have been a major factor, since well over half of the men arrested in March 1937 were taken to two camps (Lichtenburg and Sachsenburg) th
at were not slated for extension (both closed as men’s camps later that year). For the figures, see Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 62.

    52. Tooze, Wages, 260–68; Schneider, Hakenkreuz, 738–46.

    53. IfZ, Fa 199/20, Sitzung des Ministerrats am 11.2.1937.

    54. RJM minutes, February 15, 1937, NCC, doc. 127. Himmler met with Eicke on February 11 and 12, 1937; IfZ, F 37/19, Himmler diary.

    55. Quote, from Himmler’s February 23, 1937, decree, in Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 254.

    56. German criminologists had long labeled social outsiders and criminals as “work-shy” (Hörath, “Experimente,” chapters 4 and 8). This term took on greater economic meaning in the late 1930s.

    57. RJM minutes, February 15, 1937, NCC, doc. 127. More generally, see Wachsmann, Prisons, 173.

    58. For overcrowding, see Drobisch and Wieland, System, 286.

    59. Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 73–74; NLHStA, 158 Moringen, Acc. 84/82, Nr. 8, Bl. 2: Krack, Aktenvermerk, October 6, 1937; Roth, “Kriminalpolizei,” 335.

    60. The German police held 2,752 “professional criminals and habitual sex offenders” in preventive detention on November 13, 1937 (BArchB, R 58/483, Bl. 120–21: Mitteilungsblatt des LKA). Little more than a year later, the figure had risen to around 4,000 (figure for December 31, 1938, referring to 12,921 prisoners in preventive police custody, among them 8,892 “asocials”; evidently, the remaining 4,029 prisoners were regarded as “criminals”; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 313).

    61. Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 64; ITS, 1.1.5.1/0544–0682/0647/0027, Einlieferungsbuch; Röll, Sozialdemokraten, 68 (n. 163).

    62. Drobisch and Wieland, System, 288.

    63. For the transports, see Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 69. Only 198 “criminals” were left in Buchenwald when war broke out in September 1939; Stein, “Funktionswandel,” 170.

    64. Broszat, Kommandant, 58–61, 73, quotes on 61, 101. For violence against “criminals” in early camps, see Langhoff, Moorsoldaten, 292–304.

    65. Report by A. Hübsch, 1961, NCC, doc. 240.

    66. BArchB, KLuHafta Sachsenburg 2, Kommandantur-Befehl, April 14, 1937.

    67. OdT, vol. 1, 92, 96.

    68. AS, Totenbuch.

    69. The figures exclude six men classified as preventive custody prisoners; BwA, Totenbuch. During the same period—August 1937 to July 1938—the SS recorded thirty-seven deaths among political prisoners.

    70. Quote in Kogon, Theory, 31. For the term “BVer,” ITS, 1.1.6.0, folder 25, doc. 82095206, Wahrheit und Recht 1 (May 1946). For the USSR, see Khlevniuk, Gulag, doc. 98; Barnes, “Soviet,” 107–10.

    71. For example, see Freund, Buchenwald!, 99–100, 103–105; Seger, “Oranienburg,” 34, 47. For SS views, Himmler speech at a Wehrmacht course, January 15–23, 1937, NCC, doc. 83.

    72. See also Orth, “Lagergemeinschaft,” 114–16.

    73. Of 2,752 “professional criminals and habitual sex offenders” in preventive detention on November 13, 1937, 1,679 were classified as burglars and thieves. Another 522 were classified as fraudsters and fences. Only some twenty percent were accused of crimes against the person: 495 so-called sex offenders (including homosexual men) and 56 robbers; BArchB, R 58/483, Bl. 120–21: Mitteilungsblatt des LKA. See also Langhammer, “Verhaftungsaktion,” 61; Pretzel, “‘Umschulung.’”

    74. Wagner, “‘Vernichtung,’” 104–105.

    75. For “green” prisoners being held in the same barracks, NCC, doc. 220; Naujoks, Leben, 52–55.

    76. For a different view, see Neurath, Gesellschaft, 97–98.

    77. For the tensions, see report by H. Schwarz, July 1945, NCC, doc. 231; Poller, Arztschreiber, 150.

    78. The spring 1937 arrests were carried out on the basis of the Reichstag Fire Decree; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 286. For background of the December 1937 decree, see Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 258–59.

    79. BArchB, R 58/473, Bl. 46–49: Erlaß des Reichs- und Preußischen MdI, December 14, 1937; partial translation in NCC, doc. 99.

    80. The Duisburg police also suspected Müller of a recent theft and speculated that he might be guilty of other unnamed offenses; HStAD, BR 1111, Nr. 188, quote on Bl. 43, Krimineller Lebenslauf, n.d. (my thanks to Julia Hörath for her notes on this case).

    81. Figure in Schmid, “Aktion,” 36.

    82. Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 151–59; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 280.

    83. Schmid, “Aktion,” 32–34; Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 140–43. Ayaß stresses that protective custody prisoners (arrested by the Gestapo) and preventive police detention prisoners (arrested by the Kripo) could both be classified as “asocials” in the KL; Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 170.

    84. Ayaß, “Gemeinschaftsfremde,” 114–15; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 292–93. For female “asocials,” see Schikorra, “Grüne,” 108; idem, Kontinuitäten, 143; Caplan, “Gender,” 89.

    85. Barkow et al., Novemberpogrom, 46.

    86. BArchB, R 58/473, Bl. 63–72: Richtlinien zum Erlaß zur vorbeugenden Verbrechensbekämpfung, April 4, 1938.

    87. Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 150–54; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 279, 282–84, 288–89.

    88. Heydrich to Kripo, June 1, 1938, NCC, doc. 103. For the use of the term “gypsy” by scholars of the Third Reich, see Zimmermann, Rassenutopie, 17–20; Fings, “Dünnes Eis,” 25.

    89. There were an estimated twenty to twenty-six thousand Gypsies living in Germany in 1933. For the above, see Zimmermann, Rassenutopie, 106–20; Wachsmann, “Policy,” 142–43. See also Lewy, Nazi Persecution, 17–55.

    90. LHASA, MD, Rep. C 29 Anh. 2, Nr. Z 98/1, quote on Bl. 4: Kripolizeistelle Magdeburg, Anordnung, June 16, 1938. Laubinger was released on August 25, 1939. My thanks to Christian Goeschel for these documents.

    91. Herbert, Best, 163–68, 176–77.

    92. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 280–82, 286, 290; Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 141, 143–46, 156–58.

    93. This is also stressed in Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 160–65, and Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 287–89.

    94. Hörath, “‘Arbeitsscheue Volksgenossen.’”

    95. Heydrich to Kripo, June 1, 1938, NCC, doc. 103. See also Pingel, Häftlinge, 71–72.

    96. Quotes in Picker, Tischgespräche, 600. See also Eicke to Greifelt, August 10, 1938, in Tuchel, Inspektion, 56.

    97. Ayaß, “Asoziale,” 141–42, 148–49, 163. In 1938, Himmler also launched another attempt to poach inmates from state prisons (NCC, doc. 131) and workhouses (NCC, doc. 101).

    98. OdT, vol. 1, 97. The situation was different in the Lichtenburg women’s camp, where Jehovah’s Witnesses outnumbered “asocials”; Schikorra, “Grüne,” 108.

    99. Schmid, “Aktion,” 38–39.

  100. On August 30, 1939, 2,873 of all 5,382 Buchenwald prisoners fell into the category “work-shy,” which included “work-shy Jews” (Stein, “Funktionswandel,” 170). On August 31, 1939, 3,313 of all 6,573 Sachsenhausen prisoners fell into the category “work-shy” (AS, D 1 A/1024, Bl. 264: Veränderungsmeldung). On prisoner markings, see OdT, vol. 1, 94, 97–98.

  101. All men arrested in the April 1938 raids were taken to Buchenwald. The camp was also initially chosen as the destination for those arrested in the June 1938 raids (Heydrich to Kripo, June 1, 1938, in NCC, doc. 103).

  102. Schmid, “Aktion,” 36.

  103. Broszat, Kommandant, 86, 97, quote on 93.

  104. Barkow et al., Novemberpogrom, 49–50, quote on 50; Naujoks, Leben, 77–78.

  105. Naujoks, Leben, 78–80; OdT, vol. 3, 22; Barkow et al., Novemberpogrom, 61–62.

  106. For background, see Neurath, Gesellschaft, 42–44.

  107. Pingel, Häftlinge, 85–86; Schikorra, Kontinuitäten, 143–44, 207, 210–17; Pretzel, “Vorfälle,” 125; Ayaß, “Asozial
e,” 168–69. For the term “Asos,” see ITS, 1.1.6.0, folder 25, doc. 82095206, Wahrheit und Recht 1 (May 1946). For an inside view of life among the “asocials,” see ibid., doc. 82095213, Wahrheit und Recht 2 (June 1946).

  108. Poller, Arztschreiber, quotes on 187; Naujoks, Leben, 81–82; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, 288.

  109. Friedlander, Origins, 25–31; Burleigh, Death, 55–66.

  110. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 289–91, quote on 289; BArchL, B 162/491, Bl. 66–79: Vernehmung W. Heyde, October 19, 1961, quote on 70. See also monthly report of the Buchenwald SS doctor, June 8, 1938, NCC, doc. 237; Naujoks, Leben, 107; DaA, 9438, A. Hübsch, “Insel des Standrechts” (1961), 109; Hahn, Grawitz, 161; Poller, Arztschreiber, 116; Schikorra, Kontinuitäten, 176.

  111. DaA, Häftlingsdatenbank; BwA, Totenbuch; AS, Totenbuch; AGFl, Häftlingsdatenbank; AM, Zugangslisten und Totenbücher. I am very grateful to Albert Knoll, Sabine Stein, Monika Liebscher, Johannes Ibel, and Andreas Kranebitter for sending me this data on prisoner mortality, which I have drawn on in this and other sections in this chapter.

  112. AS, Totenbuch. A small number of fatalities may have gone unrecorded in the Sachsenhausen “death ledger.”

  113. As note 111, above.

  114. Quote in Kohlhagen, Bock, 24. For the figures, see AS, Totenbuch.

  115. In all, there are 1,232 known fatalities, including 169 “asocial Jews”; see note 111, above.

  116. BArchB, NS 19/4014, Bl. 158–204: Rede vor Generälen, June 21, 1944, Bl. 170. More generally, see Wachsmann, Prisons, 112, 192–94, 210.

  117. There were some early reports on the detention of social outsiders (Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 57–61), but the main media focus was on political opponents.

  118. See also Moore, “Popular Opinion,” 185.

  119. “Konzentrationslager Dachau,” Illustrierter Beobachter, December 3, 1936, 2014–17, 2028, partial translation in NCC, doc. 270. For a similar article from 1936, NCC, doc. 268.

  120. Broadcast by Himmler, January 29, 1939, NCC, doc. 274; “Erfolg der Vorbeugungshaft,” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, October 24, 1935.

  121. Wachsmann, Prisons, 18–19, 54–58. More generally, see Peukert, Nazi Germany, 222–23.