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177-682: Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office . Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria , adjacent to the town of Flossenbürg and near the German border with Czechoslovakia . The camp's initial purpose was to exploit the forced labor of prisoners for the production of granite for Nazi architecture . In 1943,

354-495: A "dual strategy of publicity and secrecy", the regime directed terror both at the direct victim as well as the entire society in order to eliminate its opponents and deter resistance. Beginning in March 1933, detailed reports on camp conditions were published in the press. Nazi propaganda demonized the prisoners as race traitors, sexual degenerates, and criminals and presented the camps as sites of re-education. After 1933, reports in

531-701: A Polish attack on Germany. In September 1939, the SS transferred 1,000 political prisoners to Flossenbürg from Dachau in order to clear the latter camp to train the first regiment of the Waffen-SS . These prisoners, who were the first political prisoners at Flossenbürg, were moved back to Dachau in March 1940. The first foreign prisoners were transferred to the camp by the Gestapo in April, including Czech student protestors and Polish resistance members . The vast majority of

708-514: A consequence of these death marches . Many prisoners died after liberation due to their poor physical condition. The liberation of the camps – documented by the Western Allies in 1945 – has played a prominent part in perception of the camp system as a whole. Since their liberation, the Nazi concentration camp system has come to symbolize violence and terror in the modern world. After

885-577: A courtesy. The killings at Dachau suddenly stopped (temporarily), Wäckerle was transferred to Stuttgart and replaced by Theodor Eicke . The indictment and related evidence reached the office of Hans Frank, the Bavarian Justice Minister, but was intercepted by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner and locked away in a desk only to be discovered by the US Army. In 1934, both Hartinger and Wintersberger were transferred to provincial positions. Flamm

1062-624: A cumulative figure that counts all the subcamps that existed at one point; historian Karin Orth estimates the number of subcamps to have been 186 at the end of 1943, 341 or more in June 1944, and at least 662 in January 1945. The camps were concentrated in prewar Germany and to a lesser extent territory annexed to Germany. No camps were built on the territory of Germany's allies that enjoyed even nominal independence. Each camp housed either men, women, or

1239-461: A few thousand reached their destination. The prisoners were transported by rail to Oberviechtach , where they split into two groups. One of these traveled by foot and in trucks via Külz , Dieterskirchen , and Schwarzhofen , joining the earlier march of Jewish prisoners in Neunburg . Many prisoners remained in the town from 20–22 April, when the SS guards deserted. The United States Army arrived in

1416-399: A fixed daily cost. This decision paved the way for the establishment of many subcamps located near workplaces. More workers were obtained through transfers from prisons and forced labor programs, causing the prisoner population to double twice by mid-1944. Subcamps where prisoners did construction work had significantly higher death rates than those that worked in munitions manufacture. By

1593-409: A freight train from Buchenwald with nearly 4,500 was diverted to Nammering. SS troops and police confiscated food and water that local townspeople tried to give to the prisoners. Nearly three hundred dead bodies were ordered removed from the train and carried to a ravine over 400 metres ( 1 ⁄ 4  mi) away. The 524 prisoners who had been forced to carry the dead to this site were then shot by

1770-668: A group from Ohrdruf concentration camp , and the survivors of the death march from Buchenwald. SS official Kurt Becher , who was involved in negotiations between Himmler and the Allies, visited Flossenbürg on 17 April and attempted to persuade Koegel not to evacuate the camp. A telegram from Himmler the next day repeated the order not to let any prisoner fall into enemy hands. On 19 April, some 25,000 to 30,000 remaining prisoners in Flossenbürg and its subcamps were ordered to evacuate to Dachau. About 16,000 prisoners actually set out, and only

1947-414: A high mortality rate during the first half of the war. In contrast, Reich Germans enjoyed favorable treatment compared to other nationalities. A minority of prisoners obtained substantially better treatment than the rest because they were prisoner functionaries (mostly Germans) or skilled laborers. Prisoner functionaries served at the whim of the SS and could be dismissed for insufficient strictness. As

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2124-481: A large complex capable of holding 6,000 prisoners. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938. More political opponents, and over 11,000 German and Austrian Jews were sent to the camp after the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938. Sinti and Roma in the hundreds were sent to the camp in 1939, and over 13,000 prisoners were sent to the camp from Poland in 1940. Representatives of

2301-489: A manpower agency. In mid-January 1943, DEST accepted the offer; production started in early February. According to Yad Vashem historian Daniel Uziel , the conversion of Flossenbürg to armaments production was especially significant because it had been the most profitable DEST enterprise. The number of prisoners working for Messerschmitt increased greatly after the bombing of Messerschmitt's Regensburg plant on 17 August 1943. That month, 800 prisoners worked for Messerschmitt;

2478-528: A massive transfer of Soviet prisoners to the SS camp system. In poor condition due to their previous mistreatment , they spent several months recovering before they were deemed fit to work. They were accommodated in a special, cordoned-off area. By February 1943, Flossenbürg had 4,004 prisoners, not including the Soviet prisoners of war. From April 1943, the commandant was Max Koegel , described by American historian Todd Huebner as "a vicious martinet " who lacked

2655-720: A military base for the United States, which maintained forces in the country. It was closed in 1960. At the insistence of survivors, various memorials have been constructed and installed here. Demographic statistics vary but they are in the same general range. History will likely never know how many people were interned or murdered there, due to periods of disruption. One source gives a general estimate of over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries during Nazi rule, of whom two-thirds were political prisoners, including many Catholic priests, and nearly one-third were Jews. At least 25,613 prisoners are believed to have been murdered in

2832-478: A million died during their imprisonment. Historian Adam Tooze counts the number of survivors at no more than 475,000, calculating that at least 1.1 million of the registered prisoners must have died. According to his estimate, at least 800,000 of the murdered prisoners were not Jewish. In addition to the registered prisoners who died, a million Jews were gassed upon arriving in Auschwitz; including these victims,

3009-430: A mixed population. Women's camps were mostly for armaments production and located primarily in northern Germany, Thuringia , or the Sudetenland , while men's camps had a wider geographical distribution. Sex segregation decreased over the course of the war and mixed camps predominated outside of Germany's prewar borders. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom, according to Wagner, nearly

3186-559: A munition factory, and to expand the camp. It was used as a training center for the SS-Totenkopfverbände guards and was a model for other concentration camps. The camp was about 300 m × 600 m (1,000 ft × 2,000 ft) in rectangular shape. The prisoners' entrance was secured by an iron gate with the motto " Arbeit macht frei " ("Work will make you free"). This reflected Nazi propaganda, which had concentration camps as labor and re-education camps. This

3363-451: A narrow valley, had little room for expansion. Originally constructed for only 1,500 prisoners, the population of the main camp increased to between 10,000 and 11,000 before it was evacuated in April 1945. In order to increase productivity, the prisoners were forced to sleep and work in shifts. This also helped alleviate the chronic overcrowding in the barracks. The prisoner functionaries at Flossenbürg were unusually brutal and corrupt because

3540-466: A petition by the nephew of a defendant. One was convicted and the other acquitted, leading to judicial review of the charges against the defendants, but a War Crimes Board of Review found that the perjury had not affected the outcome of the trial. Two of the defendants who had received death sentences had their sentences reduced on appeal. The remaining death sentences were carried out on 3 and 15 October 1947 or 1948. Between December 1950 and December 1951,

3717-633: A racial hierarchy—keeping Poles in harsh conditions, while favoring German priests. 697 Poles arrived in December 1941, and a further 500 of mainly elderly clergy arrived in October the following year. Inadequately clothed for the bitter cold, of this group, only 82 survived. A large number of Polish priests were chosen for Nazi medical experiments. In November 1942, 20 were given phlegmons . 120 were used by Dr Schilling for malaria experiments between July 1942 and May 1944. Several Poles met their deaths with

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3894-447: A result, sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky emphasizes that "They took over the role of the SS in order to prevent SS encroachment" and other prisoners remembered them for their brutality. Hard labor was a fundamental component of the concentration camp system and an aspect in the daily life of prisoners. However, the forced labor deployment was largely determined by external political and economic factors that drove demand for labor. During

4071-490: A separate, secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration and army camps. Eicke became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for organizing others according to his model. The Dachau complex included the prisoners' camp which occupied approximately 5 acres, and the much larger area of SS training school including barracks, factories plus other facilities of around 20 acres. The entrance gate used by prisoners carries

4248-467: A site for a new camp that would meet the SS' specifications. On 24 March 1938, they chose a site near the small town of Flossenbürg , in the Upper Palatinate , for the establishment of a concentration camp due to the quarries of blue-gray granite located nearby. Unlike all other Nazi concentration camps to date, which were near rail junctions and population centers, the camp was to be located in

4425-485: A ten-week course covering both practical and theoretical topics but watched carefully by kapos . Those who failed to advance were sent to work in the quarries, while those whose productivity improved were given cigarettes and extra food. The stone that they cut was used for construction of the camp, the Autobahn , and various SS military projects, but later on it was destined for the monumental German Stadium project and

4602-602: A thousand concentration camps ( German : Konzentrationslager ), including subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe . The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany . Following the 1934 purge of the SA , the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later

4779-417: A transport of 100 prisoners arrived from Dachau , establishing the camp. More prisoners arrived from Dachau on 9 and 16 May; Himmler visited the camp on 16 May with Pohl, indicating that the SS considered it an important project. The SS attempted to segregate prisoners incarcerated for criminal offences at Flossenbürg because forced labor in the quarries was considered a particularly harsh punishment. Most of

4956-498: A year later, 5,700 prisoners were employed in armaments production. Erla Maschinenwerk  [ de ] , a subcontractor of Messerschmitt, established Flossenbürg subcamps to support its production: a subcamp at Johanngeorgenstadt , established in December 1943, to produce tailplanes for the Bf 109, and another subcamp at Mülsen-St. Micheln which produced aircraft wings, in January 1944. Despite strict regulations forbidding contact,

5133-470: Is claimed that in 1942, more than 3,166 prisoners in weakened condition were transported to Hartheim Castle near Linz , and were executed by poison gas because they were deemed unfit. Between January and April 1945 11,560 detainees died at KZ Dachau according to a U.S. Army report of 1945 , though the Dachau administration registered 12,596 deaths from typhus at the camp over the same period. Dachau

5310-714: Is difficult to determine; historian Jane Caplan estimated it at 50,000, with arrests perhaps exceeding 100,000. Eighty per cent of prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany and ten per cent members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . Many prisoners were released in late 1933, and after a Christmas amnesty , there were only a few dozen camps left. About 70 camps were established in 1933, in any convenient structure that could hold prisoners, including vacant factories, prisons, country estates, schools, workhouses , and castles. There

5487-715: Is open to the public. Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other German concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps. Newspapers continually reported "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps." As early as 1935, a jingle went around: "Lieber Herr Gott, mach mich stumm, Das ich nicht nach Dachau komm'" ("Dear Lord God, make me dumb [silent], That I may not to Dachau come"). The camp's layout and building plans were developed by Commandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had

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5664-616: The Aktion T4 mass killings toured several concentration camps to select ill inmates to be transported to euthanasia centers; they visited Flossenbürg in March 1942. Thousands of prisoners who were worn out by forced labor were sent to death camps such as Majdanek and Auschwitz . One transport from Flossenbürg to Auschwitz arrived on 5 December 1943 with more than 250 of the 948 prisoners dead. By 18 February, only 393 survived. Women unable to work were often deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp . The rate of executions increased during

5841-627: The Einsatzgruppen death squads and massacred Polish Jews as well as Soviet prisoners of war. Older general SS personnel, and those wounded or disabled, replaced those assigned to combat duties. As the war progressed, a more diverse group was recruited to guard the expanding camp system, including female guards (who were not part of the SS). During the second half of the war, army and air force personnel were recruited, making up as many as 52 per cent of guards by January 1945. The manpower shortage

6018-725: The Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire , Ottoman Armenians were held in camps during their deportation into the Syrian Desert . In postwar Germany , "unwanted foreigners" – mainly Eastern European Jews – were confined at Cottbus-Sielow and Stargard . On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany after striking a backroom deal with the previous chancellor, Franz von Papen . The Nazis had no plan for concentration camps prior to their seizure of power. The concentration camp system arose in

6195-515: The Confessing Church theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer . In all, the SS had executed at least 2,500 people at Flossenbürg. A total of 12,000 prisoners in seventeen transports arrived at Flossenbürg in late 1944 and early 1945, causing the camp to fall into a state of disarray. The first of these prisoners had been evacuated from Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in summer 1944. In early 1945, 2,000 prisoners were sent to Flossenbürg during

6372-537: The Disciplinary and Penal Code , a manual which specified draconian punishments for disobedient prisoners. He also created a system of prisoner functionaries , which later developed into the camp elders, block elders, and kapo of later camps. In May 1934, Lichtenburg was taken over by the SS from the Prussian bureaucracy, marking the beginning of a transition set in motion by Heinrich Himmler , then chief of

6549-569: The Gestapo ( secret police ). Following the purge of the SA on 30 June 1934, in which Eicke took a leading role, the remaining SA-run camps were taken over by the SS. In December 1934, Eicke was appointed the first inspector of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate (IKL); only camps managed by the IKL were designated "concentration camps". In early 1934, the number of prisoners was still falling and it

6726-703: The International Committee of the Red Cross inspected the camp in 1935 and 1938 and documented the harsh conditions. Shortly after the SS was commissioned to supplement the Bavarian police overseeing the Dachau camp, the first reports of prisoner deaths at Dachau began to emerge. In April 1933, Josef Hartinger , an official from the Bavarian Justice Ministry and physician Moritz Flamm , part-time medical examiner, arrived at

6903-519: The Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg . Of the five prewar concentration camps where economic industries were prominent, Flossenbürg was the one that was most significant and consistent in producing income for DEST . For example, it produced 2,898 cubic metres (102,300 cu ft) of stone in 1939, almost three-quarters of the total production that year. The largest buyer of Flossenbürg granite

7080-566: The SS Main Command Office and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) took on the responsibility of detaining and releasing concentration camp prisoners. In 1942, the IKL was subordinated to the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA) to improve the camps' integration into the war economy. Despite changes in the structure, the IKL remained directly responsible to Himmler. The camps under

7257-525: The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WHVA). In early 1944, 1,000 prisoners were still employed in the quarries. During 1942, the focus of the SS shifted towards war production, leading to negotiations with arms manufacturers to license their products to DEST. Messerschmitt AG was one of the most important armaments companies that demonstrated interest in acquiring the slave labor of concentration camp prisoners, opening negotiations with DEST via Rüstungskommando  [ de ] Regensburg by

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7434-410: The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office . Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany , but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", " asocials ", and Jews . After the beginning of World War II , people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in

7611-625: The Treaty of Versailles and the 1930s economic slump . Adolf Hitler's rise to power increased the demand for granite, earning the Nazi Party local support. The construction of the camp was funded by a contract with Albert Speer 's ministry for the reconstruction of Berlin ; it was the first occasion that economic considerations had determined the site of a camp. The order for the construction of eight barracks at Flossenbürg went through on 31 March, SS guards arrived in April, and on 3 May 1938,

7788-533: The United States Army liberated the main camp on 23 April and found 1,527 ill and weak prisoners in the camp hospital; more than 100 prisoners had died in the preceding three days. Despite the efforts of American medics, only 1,208 prisoners survived the immediate aftermath of liberation. Initially, the American authorities ordered the bodies to be burned in the camp crematorium, but after protests from

7965-640: The Wehrmacht and five hundred SS women were recruited into the guard force at Flossenbürg. The expansion of the camp led to the establishment of subcamps , the first of which was established at Stulln in February 1942 to provide forced labor to a mining company. Many of them were located in the Sudetenland or across the border in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Initially, the subcamps were not involved in armaments production, which changed in

8142-479: The Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. By

8319-419: The "criminal" prisoners at concentration camps needed to be isolated from society because they had committed offenses of a sexual or violent nature. In fact, most of the criminal prisoners were working-class men who had resorted to petty theft to support their families. Nazi raids of perceived asocials, including the arrest of 10,000 people in June 1938, targeted homeless people and the mentally ill, as well as

8496-669: The "invalid trains" sent out from the camp, others were liquidated in the camp and given bogus death certificates. Some died of cruel punishment for misdemeanors—beaten to death or run to exhaustion. The camp staff consisted mostly of male SS, although 19 female guards served at Dachau as well, most of them until liberation. Sixteen have been identified including Fanny Baur, Leopoldine Bittermann, Ernestine Brenner, Anna Buck, Rosa Dolaschko, Maria Eder, Rosa Grassmann, Betty Hanneschaleger, Ruth Elfriede Hildner , Josefa Keller, Berta Kimplinger, Lieselotte Klaudat, Theresia Kopp, Rosalie Leimboeck, and Thea Miesl. Female guards were also assigned to

8673-589: The Allies neared the camp in mid-April. At least 6,000 prisoners from Buchenwald arrived at Flossenbürg between 16 and 20 April; many of the Jews were sent on to the Theresienstadt Ghetto while non-Jewish prisoners remained at Flossenbürg. On 14 April, the population of Flossenbürg and its subcamps was 45,800, including 16,000 women. The main camp's population peaked at between 10,000 and 11,000. On 14 April 1945, SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered all of

8850-624: The Augsburg Michelwerke, Burgau, Kaufering , Mühldorf, and Munich Agfa Camera Werke subcamps. In mid-April 1945, female subcamps at Kaufering, Augsburg, and Munich were closed, and the SS stationed the women at Dachau. Several Norwegians worked as guards at the Dachau camp. In the major Dachau war crimes case ( United States of America v. Martin Gottfried Weiss et.al. ), forty-two officials of Dachau were tried from November to December 1945. All were found guilty—thirty-six of

9027-606: The Dachau concentration camp dramatically increased after Kristallnacht , wore a yellow badge, combined with another color. The average number of Germans in the camp during the war was 3,000. Just before the liberation many German prisoners were evacuated, but 2,000 of these Germans died during the evacuation transport. Evacuated prisoners included such prominent political and religious figures as Martin Niemöller , Kurt von Schuschnigg , Édouard Daladier , Léon Blum , Franz Halder , and Hjalmar Schacht . In an effort to counter

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9204-534: The German civilian workers came into contact with prisoners and some helped by providing extra food or other assistance. The Flossenbürg camp system had become a key supplier of Bf 109 parts by February 1944, when Messerschmitt's Regensburg plant was bombed again during " Big Week ". Seven hundred Soviet prisoners who had been working at the Regensburg factory were transferred to Flossenbürg to continue working on Bf 109 production. Increased production at Flossenbürg

9381-678: The German military occupied other European states, citizens from across Europe were sent to concentration camps. Subsequently, the camp was used for prisoners of all sorts, from every nation occupied by the forces of the Third Reich. In the postwar years, the camp continued in use. From 1945 through 1948, the camp was used by the Allies as a prison for SS officers awaiting trial. After 1948, when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe, it held Germans from Czechoslovakia until they could be resettled. It also served as

9558-447: The Gestapo wore a violet badge, homosexuals sent by the criminal courts wore a pink badge, emigrants arrested by the Gestapo wore a blue badge, "race polluters" arrested by the criminal court or Gestapo wore badges with a black outline, second-termers arrested by the Gestapo wore a bar matching the color of their badge, "idiots" wore a white armband with the label Blöd (Stupid), Romani wore a black triangle, and Jews, whose incarceration in

9735-860: The Great Depression lowered the unemployment rate, so " work-shy " elements would be arrested to keep others working harder. At the same time, Himmler was also focusing on exploiting prisoners' labor within the camp system. Hitler's architect, Albert Speer , had grand plans for creating monumental Nazi architecture . The SS company German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) was set up with funds from Speer's agency for exploiting prisoner labour to extract building materials. Flossenbürg and Mauthausen had been built adjacent to quarries, and DEST also set up brickworks at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Political prisoners were also arrested in larger numbers, including Jehovah's Witnesses and German émigrés who returned home. Czech and Austrian anti-Nazis were arrested after

9912-577: The IKL were guarded by members of the SS-Totenkopfverbande ("death's head"). The guards were housed in barracks adjacent to the camp and their duties were to guard the perimeter of the camp as well as work details. They were officially forbidden from entering the camps, although this rule was not followed. Towards the end of the 1930s, the SS-Totenkopfverbande expanded its operations and set up military units, which followed

10089-510: The Jewish prisoners were stranded after another aerial attack disabled the locomotive. The SS murdered any prisoners who were unable to continue the march on foot. After the liberation, 140 corpses were found in a nearby field; some of the victims had been killed in the air raid, while others had been murdered. One prisoner testified that "The SS men joked and laughed during the shooting ... the prisoners were led in groups of 15–20, they had to lie on

10266-862: The Nazi camps than any other site of detention and terror in history". Stone argues that the Nazi concentration camp system inspired similar atrocities by other regimes, including the Argentine military junta during the Dirty War , the Pinochet regime in Chile, the Brazilian military dictatorship and Pitești Prison in the Romanian People's Republic . Dachau concentration camp Dachau ( UK : / ˈ d æ x aʊ / , /- k aʊ / ; US : / ˈ d ɑː x aʊ / , /- k aʊ / )

10443-510: The Nazi regime. Dachau's close proximity to Munich, where Hitler came to power and where the Nazi Party had its official headquarters, made Dachau a convenient location. From 1933 to 1938, the prisoners were mainly German nationals detained for political reasons. After the Reichspogromnacht or Kristallnacht , 30,000 male Jewish citizens were deported to concentration camps. More than 10,000 of them were interned in Dachau alone. As

10620-609: The SS and the harsh conditions, people died from typhus epidemics and starvation. The number of inmates had peaked in 1944 with transports from evacuated camps in the east (such as Auschwitz), and the resulting overcrowding led to an increase in the death rate. Dachau was opened in March 1933. The press statement given at the opening stated: On Wednesday the first concentration camp is to be opened in Dachau with an accommodation for 5000 people. 'All Communists and—where necessary— Reichsbanner and Social Democratic functionaries who endanger state security are to be concentrated here, as in

10797-591: The SS shooting range located at Hebertshausen , two kilometers from the main camp, in the years 1941/1943. These murders were a clear violation of the provisions laid down in the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war. The SS used the cynical term Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") for these criminal executions. The first executions of the Soviet prisoners of war at the Hebertshausen shooting range took place on 25 November 1941. After 1942,

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10974-513: The SS to exert absolute power. Prisoners, who previously wore civilian clothes, were forced to wear uniforms with Nazi concentration camp badges . The number of prisoners began to rise again, from 4,761 on 1 November 1936 to 7,750 by the end of 1937. By the end of June 1938, the prisoner population had expanded threefold in the previous six months, to 24,000 prisoners. The increase was fueled by arrests of those considered habitual criminals or asocials . According to SS chief Heinrich Himmler ,

11151-462: The SS used Zyklon B to kill Soviet prisoners in improvised gas chambers . In 1942, the emphasis of the camps shifted to the war effort; by 1943, two-thirds of prisoners were employed by war industries. The death rate skyrocketed with an estimated half of the 180,000 prisoners admitted between July and November 1942 dying by the end of that interval. Orders to reduce deaths in order to spare inmate productivity had little effect in practice. During

11328-413: The ability to manage the camp during its rapid expansion. Continuing influxes of political prisoners from occupied countries caused Germans to become a minority that same year. During 1944, Flossenbürg's population expanded almost eightfold, from 4,869 to 40,437, due to a high influx of mainly non-German prisoners. This was part of an expansion that applied over the entire Nazi concentration camp system. By

11505-558: The annexation of their countries in 1938 and 1939. Jews were also increasingly targeted, with 2,000 Viennese Jews arrested after the Nazi annexation. After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, 26,000 Jewish men were deported to concentration camps following mass arrests , overwhelming the capacity of the system. These prisoners were subject to unprecedented abuse leading to hundreds of deaths – more people died at Dachau in

11682-424: The area of the entire complex. Hundreds of prisoners suffered and died, or were executed, in medical experiments conducted at KZ Dachau, of which Sigmund Rascher was in charge. Hypothermia experiments involved exposure to vats of icy water or being strapped down naked outdoors in freezing temperatures. Attempts at reviving the subjects included scalding baths, and forcing naked women to have sexual intercourse with

11859-399: The area on 23 April and found 2,500 surviving prisoners. Many others were liberated on the road to Cham , 34 kilometres (20 mi) to the southeast. At many of Flossenbürg's subcamps, the SS massacred sick Jewish prisoners before evacuating. Including these massacres, the death marches cost the lives of about 7,000 prisoners from Flossenbürg and its subcamps. The 90th Infantry Division of

12036-404: The blood of comrades, he does not belong and had better leave. The more of these pig dogs we strike down, the fewer we need to feed. Between the years 1933 and 1945, more than 3.5 million Germans were imprisoned in such concentration camps or prison for political reasons. Approximately 77,000 Germans were killed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts , courts-martial , and

12213-480: The bulk of prisoners switched to producing Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes and other armaments for Germany's war effort . Although originally intended for "criminal" and "asocial" prisoners, after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union , the camp's numbers swelled with political prisoners from outside Germany. It also developed an extensive subcamp system that eventually outgrew the main camp. Before it

12390-490: The camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps, primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide. In late 1944, a typhus epidemic occurred in the camp caused by poor sanitation and overcrowding, which caused more than 15,000 deaths. It was followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the prisoners died. Toward the end of the war, death marches to and from the camp caused the deaths of numerous unrecorded prisoners. After liberation, prisoners weakened beyond recovery by

12567-410: The camp system, and aspects such as forced labor. As late as the 1990s, German local and economic history omitted mention of the camps or presented them as exclusively the responsibility of the SS. Two scholarly encyclopedias of the concentration camps have been published: Der Ort des Terrors and Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos . According to Caplan and Wachsmann, "more books have been published on

12744-420: The camp to investigate the deaths in accordance with the Bavarian penal code. They noted many inconsistencies between the injuries on the corpses and the camp guards' accounts of the deaths. Over a number of months, Hartinger and Flamm uncovered clear evidence of murder and compiled a dossier of charges against Hilmar Wäckerle , the SS commandant of Dachau, Werner Nürnbergk , the camp doctor, and Josef Mutzbauer,

12921-540: The camp's chief administrator ( Kanzleiobersekretär ). In June 1933, Hartinger presented the case to his superior, Bavarian State Prosecutor Karl Wintersberger . Initially supportive of the investigation, Wintersberger became reluctant to submit the resulting indictment to the Justice Ministry, increasingly under the influence of the SS. Hartinger reduced the scope of the dossier to the four clearest cases and Wintersberger signed it, after first notifying Himmler as

13098-400: The camps because Germans saw the prisoners rather than the guards as criminals. She writes that demand for SS construction brigades "points to general acceptance of the concentration camps". In Cologne some construction brigade prisoners were shot in broad daylight. There were 27 main camps and, according to historian Nikolaus Wachsmann 's estimate, more than 1,100 satellite camps. This is

13275-445: The camps has often been depicted as a Darwinian struggle for survival, although some mutual aid existed. Individual efforts to survive, sometimes at others' expense, could hamper the aggregate survival rate. The influx of non-German prisoners from 1939 changed the previous hierarchy based on triangle to one based on nationality. Jews, Slavic prisoners, and Spanish Republicans were targeted for especially harsh treatment which led to

13452-519: The camps to be evacuated: "Not a single prisoner must fall alive into enemy hands". As soon as he received the order, Koegel sent some families of SS men away and prepared to evacuate the camp. At 5 am on 16 April, the 1,700 Jewish prisoners at Flossenbürg main camp were separated from the rest and ordered to assemble. Eight SS men guarded each column of 100 prisoners. When they reached the railway station, 4 miles (6.4 km) distant, they were loaded into closed and open freight cars, 60 to 75 each. The train

13629-522: The camps to be murdered in euthanasia centers . By April 1942, when the operation finished, at least 6,000 and as many as 20,000 people had been killed – the first act of systematic killing in the camp system. Beginning in August 1941, selected Soviet prisoners of war were killed within the concentration camps, usually within a few days of their arrival. By mid-1942, when the operation finished, at least 34,000 Soviet prisoners had been murdered. At Auschwitz,

13806-407: The camps where they worked, often engaging prisoners for domestic labor. Perpetration by this leadership was based on their tight social bonds, a perceived common sense that the aims of the system were good, as well as the opportunity for material gain. Before World War II, most prisoners in the concentration camps were Germans. After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by

13983-424: The camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least a third of the 700,000 prisoners who were registered as of January 1945. Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches . Museums commemorating

14160-576: The camps. These subcamps, often established in town centers in such locations as schools, restaurants, barracks, factory buildings, or military camps, were joint ventures between industry and the SS. An increasing number of German civilians interacted with the camps: entrepreneurs and landowners provided land or services, doctors decided which prisoners were healthy enough to continue working, foremen oversaw labor deployments, and administrators helped with logistics. SS construction brigades were in demand by municipalities to clear bomb debris and rebuild. For

14337-408: The canteen where prisoners served SS men with cigarettes and food, the museum containing plaster images of prisoners who suffered from bodily defects, the camp office, the library, the barracks, and the infirmary, which was staffed by prisoners who had previously held occupations such as physicians or army surgeons. Over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered by the Dachau commandant's guard at

14514-530: The cemetery was added during the 1950s. A small exhibition was opened in 1985, and a permanent museum opened in what had been the laundry room in 2007. A second exhibition has existed since 2010 in the prisoner kitchen. A list of the names of more than 21,000 prisoners who died at the camp is available on the museum's website. 49°44′8″N 12°21′21″E  /  49.73556°N 12.35583°E  / 49.73556; 12.35583 Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than

14691-508: The civil justice system. Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which were considered to enable them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis. The camp was divided into two sections: the camp area and the crematorium . The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The courtyard between

14868-422: The clergy listed, with 692 noted as deceased and 336 sent out on "invalid trainloads" and therefore presumed dead. Over 400 German priests were sent to Dachau. Total numbers incarcerated are nonetheless difficult to assert, for some clergy were not recognised as such by the camp authorities, and some—particularly Poles—did not wish to be identified as such, fearing they would be mistreated. The Nazis introduced

15045-425: The concentration camp system after being deported to Auschwitz. Despite many deaths, as many as 200,000 Jews survived the war inside the camp system. Conditions worsened after the outbreak of war due to reduction in food, worsening housing, and increase in work. Deaths from disease and malnutrition increased, outpacing other causes of death. However, the food provided was usually sufficient to sustain life. Life in

15222-464: The deaths at Flossenbürg occurred before 1943. The quarries caused the death rate to be higher at Flossenbürg than at camps with less physically demanding industries, such as brickworks ; the switch to armaments production in 1943 led to a decrease in the death rate. Prisoners also suffered from a shortage of fresh water, due to the elevation, and unusually cold and wet weather; their clothing was not adequate for these conditions. The main camp, situated in

15399-531: The deaths of innumerable prisoners at Dachau main and subcamps, according to the War Crimes Commission official trial transcript. He testified about hangings, shootings and lethal injections, but did not admit to direct responsibility for any individual deaths. An anonymous Dutch prisoner contended that British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent Noor Inayat Khan was cruelly beaten by SS officer Wilhelm Ruppert before being shot from behind;

15576-406: The defendants were low-ranking SS members, sixteen were former prisoner functionaries, and two were civilians. Charges against seven were dropped and five were found not guilty. Of the remainder of the defendants, fifteen received death sentences, eleven life sentences, and the remainder jail terms of varying length. After the trial, two of the prosecution witnesses were tried for perjury following

15753-627: The defendants were sentenced to death on 13 December 1945, of whom 23 were hanged on 28–29 May 1946, including the commandant, SS- Obersturmbannführer Martin Gottfried Weiss , SS- Obersturmführer Freidrich Wilhelm Ruppert and camp doctors Karl Schilling and Fritz Hintermeyer. Camp commandant Weiss admitted in affidavit testimony that most of the deaths at Dachau during his administration were due to "typhus, TB, dysentery, pneumonia, pleurisy, and body weakness brought about by lack of food." His testimony also admitted to deaths by shootings, hangings and medical experiments. Ruppert ordered and supervised

15930-501: The disorder, he founded a camp police force composed of ethnic German prisoners, mostly criminals. These prisoners mistreated non-German prisoners. During the last months of the camp's existence, many of the prisoners were idle because no raw materials for their work had arrived. Because of its location near the border of the Protectorate, Flossenbürg was the destination for evacuation transports from Buchenwald concentration camp when

16107-509: The end of 1942 to produce parts for the Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft at Flossenbürg. Under the terms of the deal, Messerschmitt would provide skilled technicians, raw materials, and tools, paying DEST 3 Reichsmarks per day for a skilled laborer and 1.5 Reichsmarks per day for an unskilled prisoner. Thus, Messerschmitt could increase its profit margin by reducing labor costs, while DEST could reduce its administrative costs by acting as

16284-491: The end of 1943, the number of guards had increased to about 450, including 140 Ukrainian auxiliaries . As with other concentration camps, guards initially consisted of SS men from Germany and Austria, whose ranks were augmented with Volksdeutsche recruits after 1942. The number of guards increased sixfold during 1944 and reached 4,500 by the time the camp was evacuated. Due to manpower shortages, fit young guards were called up for front-line service and many older men, members of

16461-569: The end of the war, main camps were functioning more and more as transfer stations from which prisoners were redirected to subcamps. At their peak in 1945, concentration camp prisoners made up 3 per cent of workers in Germany. Historian Marc Buggeln estimates that no more than 1 per cent of the labor for Germany's arms production came from concentration camp prisoners. Arrests of Germans in 1933 were often accompanied by public humiliation or beatings. If released, prisoners might return home with visible marks of abuse or psychological breakdown. Using

16638-626: The end of the war, only 5 to 10 per cent of the camp population was "Reich Germans" from Germany or Austria. More than 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war and smaller groups from other nationalities were transferred to the concentration camps in direct violation of the Geneva Convention . Most Jews who were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust were never prisoners in concentration camps. Significant numbers of Jews were imprisoned beginning in November 1938 because of Kristallnacht , after which they were always overrepresented as prisoners. During

16815-508: The evacuation of Auschwitz concentration camp. 9,500 prisoners arrived after the evacuation of Gross-Rosen ; of 3,000 on one transport, only 1,000 arrived alive. The influx of prisoners caused conditions to worsen and the death rate to increase dramatically: 3,370 prisoners died between mid-January and 13 April. As there was not enough space in the infirmary for all of the sick prisoners, commandant Max Koegel ordered hundreds of sick prisoners sent to Bergen-Belsen in April. In order to cope with

16992-436: The final months of the camp. The SS liquidated prisoners who they suspected might try to escape or organize resistance; most of the victims were Russians. Some of them were high-profile prisoners who had been kept alive previously for interrogation. During the last days of the camp's existence, the SS executed thirteen Allied secret agents and seven prominent German anti-Nazis, including former Abwehr head Wilhelm Canaris and

17169-567: The first barracks complete, in 1939 work began on an internal jail, guard towers, a washing facility, and a sewer system. In April 1939, the economic productivity of the camp led to Pohl ordering the camp to be expanded to fit 3,000 prisoners. To build additional barracks, terraces had to be cut into the hillsides, an arduous task that led to many injuries. Fifty-five prisoners died before the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. During mid-1939, Nazi authorities planned to invade Poland . It

17346-674: The first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi Party) and the German National People's Party (dissolved on 6 July 1933). Jehovah's Witnesses , homosexuals and emigrants were sent to Dachau after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws which institutionalized racial discrimination. In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of

17523-519: The first years of the camps, unemployment was high and prisoners were forced to perform economically valueless but strenuous tasks, such as farming on moorland (such as at Esterwegen ). Other prisoners had to work on constructing and expanding the camps. In the years before World War II, quarrying and bricklaying for the SS company DEST played a central role in prisoner labor. Despite prisoners' increasing economic importance, conditions declined; prisoners were seen as expendable so each influx of prisoners

17700-517: The following months due to the desire to suppress tens of thousands of Nazi opponents in Germany. The Reichstag fire in February 1933 was the pretext for mass arrests. The Reichstag Fire Decree eliminated the right to personal freedom enshrined in the Weimar Constitution and provided a legal basis for detention without trial . The first camp was Nohra , established on 3 March 1933 in a school. The number of prisoners in 1933–1934

17877-480: The former prisoner laundry and kitchen were used commercially until the 1990s. The Flossenbürg camp quarry is on land owned by the Bavarian state government but is currently leased to a private company. The lease expires in 2024, and the Green Party is attempting to prevent the lease from being renewed so that the quarry can be incorporated into the memorial. The first memorial on the site was set up in 1946, and

18054-427: The four months after Kristallnacht than in the previous five years. Most of the Jewish prisoners were soon released, often after promising to emigrate. At the end of August 1939, prisoners of Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, and other concentration camps were murdered as part of false flag attacks staged by Germany to justify the invasion of Poland . During the war, the camps became increasingly brutal and lethal due to

18231-418: The front to more centrally located camps. They hoped to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau. After days of travel with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem as a result of overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and

18408-573: The ground and were shot in the nape". The survivors were divided into columns 100-strong and marched through heavy rain and mud. Many were ill with fever, but anyone unable to keep up was shot on the spot. At Neukirchen-Balbini , the death march joined up with the larger one of non-Jewish prisoners. Another group of Jewish evacuees continued towards Theresienstadt , arriving in early May. Evacuation of non-Jewish prisoners began on 17 April, when 2,000 prisoners left on foot, arriving at Dachau on 23 April. This group consisted of longtime Flossenbürg prisoners,

18585-423: The guards, and buried along with those who had died on the train. Nearly 800 bodies went into this mass grave . The train continued on to KZ Dachau. During April 1945 as U.S. troops drove deeper into Bavaria, the commander of KZ Dachau suggested to Himmler that the camp be turned over to the Allies. Himmler, in signed correspondence, prohibited such a move, adding that "No prisoners shall be allowed to fall into

18762-472: The hands of the enemy alive." On 24 April 1945, just days before the U.S. troops arrived at the camp, the commandant and a strong guard forced between 6,000 and 7,000 surviving inmates on a death march from Dachau south to Eurasburg , then eastwards towards the Tegernsee; liberated two days after Hitler's death by a Nisei -ethnicity U.S. Army artillery battalion . Any prisoners who could not keep up on

18939-491: The height of the Holocaust from 1941 to 1943, the Jewish population of the concentration camps was low. Extermination camps for the mass murder of Jews— Kulmhof , Belzec , Sobibor , and Treblinka —were set up outside the concentration camp system. The existing IKL camps Auschwitz and Majdanek gained additional function as extermination camps. After mid-1943, some forced-labor camps for Jews and some Nazi ghettos were converted into concentration camps. Other Jews entered

19116-440: The long run it is not possible to keep individual functionaries in the state prisons without overburdening these prisons, and on the other hand these people cannot be released because attempts have shown that they persist in their efforts to agitate and organize as soon as they are released. Whatever the publicly stated purpose of the camp, the SS men who arrived there on 11 May 1933 were left in no illusion as to its real purpose by

19293-401: The main camp, and the total planned output was 12,000 cubic metres (420,000 cu ft) annually. The stone was average quality blue-gray and yellow-gray granite, 90% of which was suitable for architectural purposes. Production gradually increased during 1940, but remained constant in 1941. Initially all work was done by manual labor; prisoners worked alongside civilian laborers and performed

19470-568: The main camps. The number of prisoners tripled from 21,000 in August 1939 to about 70,000 to 80,000 in early 1942. This expansion was driven by the demand for forced labor and later the invasion of the Soviet Union ; new camps were sent up near quarries (Natzweiler and Gross-Rosen) or brickworks (Neuengamme). In April 1941, the high command of the SS ordered the murder of ill and exhausted prisoners who could no longer work (especially those deemed racially inferior). Victims were selected by camp personnel or traveling doctors, and were removed from

19647-509: The most arduous and dangerous tasks. Accidents led to many deaths. Beginning in 1940 and 1941, machines were introduced to increase efficiency. In mid-1939, the quarries became the main use of labor in the camp and the following year they consumed half of the total labor, which was valued at 367,000 Reichsmarks . From November 1940, some prisoners were trained as stonemasons in a specialized workshop; their numbers reached 1,200 by December 1942. The prisoners were instructed by civilian experts in

19824-618: The new foreign prisoners were incarcerated due to their opposition to the Nazi regime; a few of them were Jews. Most of the Jewish political prisoners were executed or died shortly after arriving from mistreatment. The last twelve surviving Jews were deported to Auschwitz on 19 October 1942, pursuant to Himmler's order to make the Reich Judenrein . The number of Polish prisoners increased sharply in 1941; on 23 January, 600 arrived from Auschwitz. In mid-October 1941, 1,700 to 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Flossenbürg as part of

20001-413: The new main camps, many satellite camps were set up to more effectively leverage prisoner labor for the war effort. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the camps were organized according to the following structure: commandant / adjutant , political department , protective custody camp , administration  [ de ] , camp doctor , and guard command. In November 1940, the IKL came under the control of

20178-415: The number of prisoners being held at the camp continued to exceed 12,000. Dachau originally held communists, leading socialists and other "enemies of the state" in 1933 but, over time, the Nazis began to send German Jews to the camp. In the early years of imprisonment, Jews were offered permission to emigrate overseas if they "voluntarily" gave their property to enhance Hitler's public treasury. Once Austria

20355-507: The opening of a memorial and museum in 2007. During the first half of 1938, the Nazi concentration camp population expanded threefold due to increased arrests by the Schutzstaffel (SS) of individuals deemed undesirable, especially " asocial " and "criminal" prisoners, to create a slave labor force. SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the founding of new concentration camps to expand the SS economic empire. The SS intended to exploit

20532-430: The other illnesses. There were 227 documented deaths among the 2,252 patients cared for by the 127th. Over the 12 years of use as a concentration camp, the Dachau administration recorded the intake of 206,206 prisoners and deaths of 31,951. Crematoria were constructed to dispose of the deceased. Visitors may now walk through the buildings and view the ovens used to cremate bodies, which hid the evidence of many deaths. It

20709-461: The overwhelming majority, some 2,579 (or 94.88%) were Catholic. Among the other denominations, there were 109 Protestants, 22 Greek Orthodox, 8 Old Catholics and Mariavites and 2 Muslims. In his Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945 , Paul Berben noted that R. Schnabel's 1966 investigation, Die Frommen in der Hölle ("The Pious Ones in Hell") found an alternative total of 2,771 and included the fate all

20886-416: The phrase "Arbeit macht frei" ( lit.   ' "Work makes free" ' , or "Work makes [one] free"; contextual English translation: "Work shall set you free"). This phrase was also used in several other concentration camps such as Theresienstadt , near Prague , and Auschwitz I . Dachau was the concentration camp that was in operation the longest, from March 1933 to April 1945, nearly all twelve years of

21063-568: The plans of the Nazi leadership: most victims died in the second half of the war. Five new camps were opened between the start of the war and the end of 1941: Neuengamme (early 1940), outside of Hamburg ; Auschwitz (June 1940), which initially operated as a concentration camp for Polish resistance activists; Gross-Rosen (May 1941) in Silesia ; and Natzweiler (May 1941) in territory annexed from France . The first satellite camps were also established, administratively subordinated to one of

21240-623: The positions had been taken by criminal prisoners even though overall only about 5% of prisoners had been classified as criminal. The final camp elder, Anton Uhl, was beaten to death by prisoners after liberation. Many of the criminal functionaries sexually abused young male prisoners, causing the commandant to isolate teenage boys in separate barracks. The SS hierarchy was also known for corruption and brutality. Prisoners were mistreated in various ways, from being beaten or doused with cold water to being shot by guards during alleged escape attempts. The prisoners were chronically undernourished and disease

21417-428: The press were scarce but larger numbers of people were arrested and people who interacted with the camps, such as those who registered deaths, could make conclusions about the camp conditions and discuss with acquaintances. The visibility of the camps heightened during the war due to increasing prisoner numbers, the establishment of many subcamps in proximity to German civilians, and the use of labor deployments outside

21594-466: The previous six months. The staffing of these new camps was increasingly filled by Luftwaffe soldiers , Volksdeutsche SS men (ethnic Germans from outside the Reich), and SS women , for the subcamps containing female prisoners. By April 1945, 80% of the prisoners were at the subcamps. Three quarries were operational by the end of 1938, and a fourth opened in April 1941. All four quarries were located near

21771-484: The prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. The camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers. In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged and in operation until 1945. A crematorium that

21948-401: The prisoner labor was still going to the quarries. Although civilian production was being scaled back in order to reorient the economy to total war , DEST managed to secure permission to keep many of its quarries open into 1944. At Flossenbürg, the company maintained strong control over the economic enterprises of the camp, despite the fact that this aspect was supposed to be under the control of

22125-472: The prisoners at Flossenbürg were classified as criminal, with some "asocial" and a few homosexual prisoners ; the criminals quickly took over the prisoner functionary positions. The new prisoners had to construct the camp themselves, beginning with the barbed wire fence; this was initially the main use of forced labor. While performing this heavy and dangerous work, the prisoners lived in makeshift structures. Simultaneously, hundreds of prisoners had to work in

22302-428: The prisoners died at Flossenbürg or during its evacuation, the main causes of death were malnutrition and disease. Between 13,000 and 15,000 prisoners died at the main camp and more than 10,000 at the satellite camps. An estimated three-quarters of the deaths occurred in the nine months before liberation. Due to increased mortality from the harsh conditions, the SS ordered the construction of an on-site crematorium, which

22479-854: The prisoners, chances of survival rarely improved despite the contact with the outside world, although those few Germans who tried to help did not encounter punishment. Germans were often shocked to see the reality of the concentration camps up close, but reluctant to aid the prisoners because of fear that they would be imprisoned as well. Others found the poor state of the prisoners to confirm Nazi propaganda about them. Historian Robert Gellately argues that "the Germans generally turned out to be proud and pleased that Hitler and his henchmen were putting away certain kinds of people who did not fit in, or who were regarded as 'outsiders', 'asocials', 'useless eaters', or 'criminals ' ". According to historian Karola Fings , fear of arrest did not undermine public support for

22656-424: The quarries. The camp's population had increased to 1,500 following arrivals from Dachau, Sachsenhausen , and Buchenwald . In January 1939, the first commandant, Jakob Weiseborn , unexpectedly died. He was replaced by a former SS officer at Dachau, Karl Künstler , who presided over an era in which the camp became an economically productive center for granite quarrying, and increasingly deadly for its prisoners. With

22833-508: The regime to concentrate clergy at one camp and obtained permission to build a chapel, for the priests to live communally and for time to be allotted to them for their religious and intellectual activity. Priests Barracks at Dachau were established in Blocks 26, 28 and 30, though only temporarily. 26 became the international block and 28 was reserved for Poles—the most numerous group. Of a total of 2,720 clergy recorded as imprisoned at Dachau,

23010-411: The remaining twenty-six prisoners had their sentences reviewed. Most were commuted to time served or a shorter term. The last prisoner was paroled in 1957 and had his sentence remitted on 11 June 1958. After liberation, Flossenbürg was used to hold Axis Disarmed Enemy Forces and later as a displaced persons camp . During the following decades, much of the camp was built over or repurposed. For example,

23187-409: The remote Upper Palatine Forest near Flossenbürg Castle  [ de ] , formerly owned by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa . Flossenbürg was a poor rural area, with about 1,200 inhabitants who mostly worked on the quarries, which had existed since the 19th century. The local economy, especially the stone industry, was negatively impacted by the new border with Czechoslovakia after

23364-399: The river Amper , lay on the west side between the "neutral-zone" and the electrically charged, and barbed wire fence which surrounded the entire prisoner enclosure. In August 1944 a women's camp opened inside Dachau. In the last months of the war, the conditions at Dachau deteriorated. As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near

23541-509: The second half of 1944 due to a large influx of available prisoners and the activities of the Jägerstab , which sought to increase German aircraft production. The Jägerstab ' s dispersal of aircraft production spurred the expansion of the subcamp system in 1944 and resulted in the establishment of the two largest of the subcamps, at Hersbruck and Leitmeritz . In the second half of 1944, 45 new camps were created, compared to three camps in

23718-905: The second half of the war, Auschwitz swelled in size – fueled by the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews – and became the center of the camp system. It was the deadliest concentration camp and Jews sent there faced a virtual death sentence even if they were not immediately killed, as most were. In August 1943, 74,000 of the 224,000 registered prisoners in all SS concentration camps were in Auschwitz. In 1943 and early 1944, additional concentration camps – Riga in Latvia, Kovno in Lithuania, Vaivara in Estonia, and Kraków-Plaszów in Poland – were converted from ghettos or labor camps; these camps were populated almost entirely by Jewish prisoners. Along with

23895-470: The sites of Nazi camps, such as Theresienstadt and Mauthausen . Many prisoners held by Germany died as a result of intentional withholding of food and dangerous working conditions in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention . In countries such as France , Belgium , Italy , Austria-Hungary , and Germany, civilians deemed to be of "enemy origin" were denaturalized . Hundreds of thousands were interned and subject to forced labor in harsh conditions. During

24072-406: The six-day march were shot. Many others died of exhaustion, hunger and exposure. Months later a mass grave containing 1,071 prisoners was found along the route. Though at the time of liberation the death rate had peaked at 200 per day, after the liberation by U.S. forces the rate eventually fell to between 50 and 80 deaths per day from malnutrition and disease. In addition to the direct abuse of

24249-463: The slave labor of prisoners to quarry granite , which was in high demand for monumental building projects in the Nazi style . This would also profit the SS-owned and -operated company German Earth and Stone Works (DEST), which had been founded in April. During the second half of March 1938, a high-ranking SS commission led by Oswald Pohl and Theodor Eicke toured southern Germany, searching for

24426-493: The specific authority-type under whose command a person was sent to camp. Political prisoners who had been arrested by the Gestapo wore a red badge, "professional" criminals sent by the Criminal Courts wore a green badge, Cri-Po prisoners arrested by the criminal police wore a brown badge, "work-shy and asocial" people sent by the welfare authorities or the Gestapo wore a black badge, Jehovah's Witnesses arrested by

24603-600: The speech given on that day by Johann-Erasmus Freiherr von Malsen-Ponickau Comrades of the SS! You all know what the Fuehrer has called us to do. We have not come here for human encounters with those pigs in there. We do not consider them human beings, as we are, but as second-class people. For years they have been able to continue their criminal existence. But now we are in power. If those pigs had come to power, they would have cut off all our heads. Therefore we have no room for sentimentalism. If anyone here cannot bear to see

24780-423: The starvation conditions continued to die. Two thousand cases of "the dread black typhus" had already been identified by 3 May, and the U.S. Seventh Army was "working day and night to alleviate the appalling conditions at the camp". Prisoners with typhus, a louse-borne disease with an incubation period from 12 to 18 days, were treated by the 116th Evacuation Hospital, while the 127th would be the general hospital for

24957-493: The state of Bavaria , in southern Germany . After its opening by Heinrich Himmler , its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor , and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps , which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos , and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp

25134-549: The strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi security services monitored clergy very closely. Priests were frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps, often simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society". Despite SS hostility to religious observance, the Vatican and German bishops successfully lobbied

25311-480: The survivors, held a funeral for 21 former prisoners on 3 May. Some of Flossenbürg's eastern subcamps, located east of the demarcation line , were liberated by the Red Army . Investigation of Nazi war criminals at Flossenbürg began on 6 May 1945, when the United States Army appointed eleven investigators. SS- Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Becker, the head of the labor department at Flossenbürg, had signed most of

25488-475: The time of liberation. In the postwar years, the Dachau facility served to hold SS soldiers awaiting trial. After 1948, it held ethnic Germans who had been expelled from eastern Europe and were awaiting resettlement, and also was used for a time as a United States military base during the occupation . It was finally closed in 1960. There are several religious memorials within the Memorial Site, which

25665-552: The total death toll is estimated at 1.8 to more than two million. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least a third of the 700,000 prisoners who were registered as of January 1945. Major evacuations of the camps occurred in mid-1944 from the Baltics and eastern Poland , January 1945 from western Poland and Silesia , and in March 1945 from concentration camps in Germany. Both Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners died in large numbers as

25842-529: The transport lists and was considered the most important perpetrator by the American prosecutors; Koegel had committed suicide by hanging shortly after being captured by the Americans in 1946. After a year of pretrial investigation, the United States charged Becker and fifty other defendants on 14 May 1946. The defendants, who were tried before a United States military court at Dachau between 12 June 1946 and 22 January 1947, all pleaded not guilty. Thirty-three of

26019-545: The unconscious victim. Nearly 100 prisoners died during these experiments. The original records of the experiments were destroyed "in an attempt to conceal the atrocities". Extensive communication between the investigators and Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS, documents the experiments. During 1942, "high altitude" experiments were conducted. Victims were subjected to rapid decompression to pressures found at 4,300 metres (14,100 ft), and experienced spasmodic convulsions, agonal breathing , and eventual death. The camp

26196-555: The unemployed. Although the Nazis had previously targeted social outsiders, the influx of new prisoners meant that political prisoners became a minority. To house the new prisoners, three new camps were established: Flossenbürg (May 1938) near the Czechoslovak border, Mauthausen (August 1938) in territory annexed from Austria , and Ravensbrück (May 1939) the first purpose-built camp for female prisoners. The mass arrests were partly motivated by economic factors. Recovery from

26373-596: The victims of the Nazi regime have been established at many of the former camps and the Nazi concentration camp system has become a universal symbol of violence and terror. Concentration camps are conventionally held to have been invented by the British during the Second Boer War , but historian Dan Stone argues that there were precedents in other countries and that camps were "the logical extension of phenomena that had long characterized colonial rule". Although

26550-634: The war, most Germans rejected the crimes associated with the concentration camps, while denying any knowledge or responsibility. Under the West German policy of Wiedergutmachung ( lit.   ' making good again ' ), some survivors of concentration camps received compensation for their imprisonment. A few perpetrators were put on trial after the war. Accounts of the concentration camps – both condemnatory and sympathetic – were publicized outside of Germany before World War II. Many survivors testified about their experiences or wrote memoirs after

26727-418: The war. Some of these accounts have become internationally famous, such as Primo Levi 's 1947 book, If This is a Man . The concentration camps have been the subject of historical writings since Eugen Kogon 's 1946 study, Der SS-Staat  [ de ] ("The SS State"). Substantial research did not begin until the 1980s. Scholarship has focused on the fate of groups of prisoners, the organization of

26904-495: The weakened state of the prisoners. Owing to repeated transports from the front, the camp was constantly overcrowded and the hygiene conditions were beneath human dignity. Starting from the end of 1944 up to the day of liberation, 15,000 people died, about half of all the prisoners held at KZ Dachau. Five hundred Soviet POWs were executed by firing squad. The first shipment of women came from Auschwitz-Birkenau. As late as 19 April 1945, prisoners were sent to KZ Dachau; on that date

27081-702: The word "concentration camp" has acquired the connotation of murder because of the Nazi concentration camps, the British camps in South Africa did not involve systematic murder. The German Empire also established concentration camps during the Herero and Namaqua genocide (1904–1907); the death rate of these camps was 45 per cent, twice that of the British camps. During the First World War , eight to nine million prisoners of war were held in prisoner-of-war camps , some of them at locations which were later

27258-405: Was Albert Speer's office for the reconstruction of Berlin . Within this project the largest and most significant orders were for Wilhelm Kreis ' Soldiers' Hall ( Soldatenhalle ) project, beginning in 1940. Increasing amounts of stone were used for road building; 15% in 1939 but 60% the next year. The first quarry shut down in May 1943 and its workers were reassigned to arms production, but half of

27435-405: Was annexed and Czechoslovakia was dissolved, the citizens of both countries became the next prisoners at Dachau. In 1940, Dachau became filled with Polish prisoners, who continued to be the majority of the prisoner population until Dachau was officially liberated. The prisoner enclosure at the camp was heavily guarded to ensure that no prisoners escaped. A 3-metre-wide (10 ft) no-man's land

27612-418: Was appointed Chief of German Police on 17 June 1936. Of the six SS camps operational as of mid-1936, only two (Dachau and Lichtenburg) still existed by 1938. In the place of the camps that closed down, Eicke opened new camps at Sachsenhausen (September 1936) and Buchenwald (July 1937). Unlike earlier camps, the newly opened camps were purpose-built, isolated from the population and the rule of law , enabling

27789-639: Was completed in May 1940. Executions by shooting began at Flossenbürg on 6 February 1941; the first victims were Polish political prisoners. Victims were separated after the evening roll call and read their sentences. After a night in the camp jail, they were shot at the firing range adjacent to the crematorium. After a mass execution of 80 Polish prisoners on 8 September, the execution method was changed to lethal injection due to complaints from local residents of blood and body parts washing up in nearby streams. The primary victims were Polish political prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war. Doctors who had participated in

27966-570: Was decided to stage false flag attacks in order to justify a German declaration of war. Several prisoners from Flossenbürg and other concentration camps were secretly transferred to a Gestapo prison in Breslau , poisoned, and dressed in Polish uniforms. On 31 August 1939, the bodies were dumped at a border post in Hochlinden where they were shot and hacked; photographs were taken as "proof" of

28143-555: Was essential to restoring production in the aftermath of the attack. Aircraft manufacturer Arado eventually became one of the primary users of slave labor at the subcamps for the Arado Ar 234 jet bomber project, at Freiberg among other locations. Other prisoners in the subcamps were forced to work on synthetic oil production or repairing railways. Before the end of the war, about 18,000 prisoners at Flossenbürg and its subcamps were working on aviation-related projects. Ten percent of

28320-529: Was followed by increasing death rate. Private sector cooperation remained marginal to the overall concentration camp system for the first half of the war. After the failure to take Moscow in late 1941, the demand for armaments increased. The WVHA sought out partnerships with private industry and Speer's Armaments Ministry . In September 1942, Himmler and Speer agreed to use prisoners in armaments production and to repair damage from Allied bombing . Local authorities and private companies could hire prisoners at

28497-401: Was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. Prisoners lived in constant fear of brutal treatment and terror detention including standing cells , floggings , the so-called tree or pole hanging , and standing at attention for extremely long periods. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented. Approximately 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick at

28674-468: Was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945, 89,964 to 100,000 prisoners passed through Flossenbürg and its subcamps. Around 30,000 died from malnutrition, overwork, executions, or during the death marches . Some of those responsible for these deaths, including administrators, guards, and others, were tried and convicted in the Flossenbürg trial . The camp was repurposed for other uses before

28851-423: Was next to, but not directly accessible from within the camp, was erected in 1942. KZ Dachau was therefore the longest running concentration camp of the Third Reich. The Dachau complex included other SS facilities beside the concentration camp—a leader school of the economic and civil service, the medical school of the SS, etc. The camp at that time was called a "protective custody camp," and occupied less than half of

29028-599: Was no longer employed as a medical examiner and was to survive two attempts on his life before his suspicious death in the same year. Flamm's thoroughly gathered and documented evidence within Hartiger's indictment ensured that it achieved convictions of senior Nazis at the Nuremberg trials in 1947. Wintersberger's complicit behaviour is documented in his own evidence to the Pohl Trial . The prisoners of Dachau concentration camp originally were to serve as forced labor for

29205-445: Was no national system; camps were operated by local police, SS, and SA , state interior ministries, or a combination of the above. The early camps in 1933–1934 were heterogeneous and fundamentally differed from the post-1935 camps in organization, conditions, and the groups imprisoned. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed Theodor Eicke the second commandant of Dachau , which became the model followed by other camps. Eicke drafted

29382-409: Was now stark naked". The camp included an administration building that contained offices for the Gestapo trial commissioner, SS authorities, the camp leader and his deputies. These administration offices consisted of large storage rooms for the personal belongings of prisoners, the bunker, roll-call square where guards would also inflict punishment on prisoners (especially those who tried to escape),

29559-435: Was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents , which consisted of communists , social democrats , and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau , about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in

29736-679: Was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress (where Hitler had written Mein Kampf during his imprisonment). Himmler announced in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten newspaper that the camp could hold up to 5,000 people, and described it as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners" to be used to restore calm to Germany. It became

29913-501: Was originally designed for holding German and Austrian political prisoners and Jews, but in 1935 it began to be used also for ordinary criminals. Inside the camp there was a sharp division between the two groups of prisoners; those who were there for political reasons and therefore wore a red tag, and the criminals, who wore a green tag. The political prisoners who were there because they disagreed with Nazi Party policies, or with Hitler, naturally did not consider themselves criminals. Dachau

30090-556: Was rampant. Conditions differed based on a prisoner's status and race. Polish and Soviet prisoners occupied the lowest rungs on the prisoner hierarchy, being put on the most physically demanding work details and allocated less food than other prisoners. There was an epidemic of dysentery in January 1940 that shut down work at the camp, and typhus epidemics in September 1944 and January 1945 claimed many lives. The total number of prisoners who passed through Flossenbürg and its subcamps has been estimated at 89,964 or over 100,000. About 30,000 of

30267-453: Was reduced by relying on guard dogs and delegating some duties to prisoners. Corruption was widespread. Most of the camp SS leadership was middle-class and came from the war youth generation  [ de ] , who were hard-hit by the economic crisis and feared decline in status. Most had joined the Nazi movement by September 1931 and were offered full-time employment in 1933. SS leaders typically lived with their wives and children near

30444-567: Was strafed by United States aircraft soon after setting out, causing the guards to flee temporarily. Many prisoners were injured or killed; others rummaged for food that the SS guards had left behind. After the raid, the guards returned and shot injured prisoners. The total number of deaths was several dozen, increasing in the next two days as the prisoners were not provided with food or water. The route proceeded by rail through Neunburg vorm Wald , Weiden in der Oberpfalz , Pfreimd , Nabburg , and Schwarzenfeld , where, on 19 or 20 April, about 750 of

30621-420: Was the first marker of confinement for prisoners; an area which, upon entry, would elicit lethal gunfire from guard towers. Guards are known to have tossed inmates' caps into this area, resulting in the death of the prisoners when they attempted to retrieve the caps. Despondent prisoners committed suicide by entering the zone. A four-foot-deep and eight-foot-broad (1.2 × 2.4 m) creek, connected with

30798-399: Was the third concentration camp to be liberated by British or American Allied forces. After the takeover of Bavaria on 9 March 1933, Heinrich Himmler , then Chief of Police in Munich, began to speak with the administration of an unused gunpowder and munitions factory. He toured the site to see if it could be used for quartering protective-custody prisoners. The concentration camp at Dachau

30975-539: Was their original purpose, but the focus was soon shifted to using forced labor as a method of torture and murder . The original slogan was left on the gates. As of 1938, the procedure for new arrivals occurred at the Schubraum , where prisoners were to hand over their clothing and possessions. One former Luxembourgish prisoner, Albert Theis, reflected about the room, "There we were stripped of all our clothes. Everything had to be handed over: money, rings, watches. One

31152-511: Was uncertain if the system would continue to exist. By mid-1935, there were only five camps, holding 4,000 prisoners, and 13 employees at the central IKL office. At the same time, 100,000 people were imprisoned in German jails, a quarter of those for political offenses. Believing Nazi Germany to be imperiled by internal enemies , Himmler called for a war against the "organized elements of sub-humanity", including communists, socialists, Jews, Freemasons , and criminals. Himmler won Hitler's backing and

31329-576: Was used as the chief camp for Christian (mainly Catholic) clergy who were imprisoned for not conforming with the Nazi Party line. During the war, other nationals were transferred to it, including French; in 1940 Poles; in 1941 people from the Balkans, Czechs, Yugoslavs; and in 1942, Russians. Prisoners were divided into categories. At first, they were classified by the nature of the crime for which they were accused, but eventually were classified by

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