Misplaced Pages

#319680

97-506: The Langenstein-Zwieberge was a concentration camp , an under-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp . More than 7000 prisoners from 23 countries were imprisoned there between April 1944 and April 1945. The camp was situated in the village of Langenstein, Saxony-Anhalt , which has since been absorbed into the town of Halberstadt . The first group of deportees from Buchenwald arrived on 21 April 1944. They were 18, French, and formed

194-495: 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

291-548: A barracks of Halberstadt which had been transformed into a hospital. The majority of the evacuees died there in the days that followed. Their remains rest in a common grave in the city cemetery. On 11 September 1949 a memorial and a commemorative plaque were inaugurated at the place of the common graves. Since 1976 there exists a museum on the ground of the Memorial of Langenstein-Zwieberge. Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than

388-712: A bitter struggle. The division moved back to Belgium and the Netherlands for rehabilitation and training, 22 January 1945. On 1 March, the 83rd Division advanced toward the Rhine in Operation Grenade , and captured Neuss . The west bank of the Rhine from north of Oberkassel to the Erft Canal was cleared and defensive positions established by 2 March and the division renewed its training. The 83rd Division crossed

485-436: A combined unit, was split. The 83rd Infantry Division was ordered into active military service on 15 August 1942 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. The original officer cadre was a small group of Regular Army officers plus more officers from various National Guard units, while the original enlisted cadre was from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment . The rest of the original officer personnel were chiefly officer candidate school graduates, with

582-445: A concrete mixer, and two fire engines. Every enemy unit or town that surrendered or was captured subscribed its quota of rolling stock for the division, usually at gunpoint. These newly acquired vehicles were quickly painted olive-green and fitted with a U.S. star before joining the 83rd. The division even seized and flew a German Bf 109 . From the air the column bore no resemblance to either an armored or an infantry division. But for

679-514: 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

776-624: 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

873-514: A death per meter of projection. Life expectancy for prisoners was six weeks. Prisoners worked in two 12-hour shifts under atrocious conditions, in dust, insufficient air, and under the blows of the kapos . Many returned to the camp exhausted, with barely enough energy to eat their soup. The principal goal of the excavations was to hide production facilities for the Junkers factories that would build new types of jets and weapons. With this in mind,

970-652: A few Reserve officers and transfers from other units, while the bulk of the enlisted personnel were draftees . The division, commanded by Major General Robert C. Macon , arrived in England on 16 April 1944 with its first divisional headquarters at Keele Hall in Staffordshire. After training in Wales , the division, taking part in the Allied invasion of Normandy , landed at Omaha Beach , 18 June 1944, and entered

1067-399: 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

SECTION 10

#1732787231320

1164-462: 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

1261-478: 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,

1358-489: 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

1455-447: 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

1552-456: A subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp . At the camp, the troops found approximately 1,100 inmates who were malnourished and in extremely poor physical condition. The 83rd Division reported the death rate at the camp had been 500 per month. The prisoners had been forced to work 16-hour days in nearby mines, and were shot if they became too weak to work. After liberation, the death rate continued at approximately 25–50 people per day, due to

1649-602: 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

1746-483: Is about 1100, all male, roughly divided as follows—300 Poles, 200 Russians, 200 French, 100 Belgians and Dutch, 200 Czechs and 100 Germans. As a consequence of bad treatment by the Germans during the last days of their regime, the present death rate is between 25 and 30 per day. The average weight of the patients is 60 lbs, due to malnutrition. The men are all lousy and the barracks and wooden beds are full of lice, there

1843-714: 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

1940-473: Is no report of typhus. Practically all have dysentery. Most of the inmates are stretcher cases." An excerpt from an article in Stars and Stripes, Friday April 20, 1945, reads, "The smell of death was there, even among the still living. In the hospital were those about to die. There was one man who had been beaten about the hips for stealing potato peelings. He just didn't have any flesh there any more. The rest of

2037-627: 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

SECTION 20

#1732787231320

2134-725: 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

2231-623: The Battle of Saint-Malo reduced enemy strong points and a combined attack against the Citadel Fortress of St. Servan caused its surrender, 17 August. While elements moved south to protect the north bank of the Loire River , the main body of the division concentrated south of Rennes for patrolling and reconnaissance activities. Elements reduced the garrison at Ile de Cézembre , which surrendered, 2 September. On 16 September 1944: in

2328-537: 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

2425-488: The Elbe , 3,000 survivors of the camp, in six columns of 500, escorted by the S.S. marched east. The majority went during 15 days and, after 300 km, were found close to Wittenberg , on Elbe. One column was completely destroyed without a trace. Another column marched until 28 April and arrived close to Berlin with only 18 survivors. It is roughly estimated that 500 to 1500 survived these column marches. On 11 April 1945,

2522-569: 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

2619-590: The Quedlinburg by horse-drawn car, then by truck. The ashes of 912 victims, including 131 French, rest in the cemetery of this city. In March, the crematory couldn't continue its work for lack of fuel, and the bodies accumulated in a hut. They were buried, either in four large pits outside the camp that contain more than 700, or close to Revier, inside the camp, in a pit where several hundreds of other bodies lie. The corpses were transported, by two, in wooden cases carried by four prisoners after work. They emptied

2716-632: 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

2813-410: 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

2910-457: The US 8th Armored Division , 83rd Infantry Division liberated the camp. The first Allied soldier in the camp, First Lieutenant Raymond L. Reed, a medic with the U.S. 8th Armored Division writes, "Sometime between Apr. 10 – 15th I found Langenstein concentration camp when the townspeople told me there was a "Concentrations-lager" on the hill overlooking the town. I opened the gates and not a sound from

3007-888: The USS George Washington on 21 January 1919 after 8 months of overseas service and was demobilized on 8 October 1919 at Camp Sherman, Ohio. It was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the Fifth Corps Area , and assigned to the XV Corps . The division was further allotted to the state of Ohio as its home area. The division headquarters was organized on 27 September 1921 at Columbus Barracks (redesignated Fort Hayes in 1922) in Columbus, Ohio , and remained there until activated for World War II. To maintain communications with

Langenstein-Zwieberge - Misplaced Pages Continue

3104-535: 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

3201-552: The hedgerow struggle south of Carentan , 27 June. Taking the offensive, the 83rd reached the St. Lo-Periers Road, 25 July, and advanced 8 miles (13 km) against strong opposition as the Normandy Campaign ended. After a period of training, elements of the division took Châteauneuf-d'Ille-et-Vilaine , 5 August, and Dinard , 15 August, and approached the heavily fortified area protecting St. Malo . Intense fighting during

3298-419: 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

3395-400: The 83rd "The Rag-Tag Circus" due to its resourceful commander, Major General Robert C. Macon, ordering the supplementing of the division's transport with anything that moved, "no questions asked". The 83rd moved as fast as an armored task force in an assortment of hurriedly repainted captured German vehicles: Wehrmacht kubelwagens , staff cars, ammunition trucks, Panzers, motor bikes, buses,

3492-545: The Fifth Corps Area, usually with active units of the 5th Division. For example, the division's artillery trained with the 5th Division field artillery units stationed at Camp Knox; the 308th Engineer Regiment usually trained at Fort Benjamin Harrison; the 308th Medical Regiment trained at Camp Knox; and the 308th Observation Squadron trained with the 88th Observation Squadron at Wright Field , Ohio. In addition to

3589-860: 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

3686-577: 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

3783-456: The Junkers firm arranged a small camp of three huts inside the large camp in edge of the place of call to place there deportees specialists, 869 people, arrivals of Kommandos of Halberstadt , Aschersleben , Langensalza , and Niederorschel . The small camp, with neither reed nor straw mattress, the prisoners, like the others, were forced to dig tunnels. Dead prisoners were initially sent to

3880-501: The Langenstein concentration camp: "A camp for political prisoners. In fact it was an "extermination" camp, the inmates being forced to work about 15 hour per day in the nearby mine on a small ration of dry bread and water. When prisoners became too weak to work there were generally executed by the SS guards. Mortality averaged about 300 per month. They were buried in communal graves, a new layer being added each day. Number presently

3977-805: 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 . 83rd Infantry Division (United States) The 83rd Infantry Division ("Thunderbolt" )

Langenstein-Zwieberge - Misplaced Pages Continue

4074-663: The Rhine south of Wesel , 29 March, and advanced across the Munster Plain to the Weser , crossing it at Bodenwerder . The division crossed the Leine , 8 April, and attacked to the east, pushing over the Harz Mountain region and advancing to the Elbe at Barby . That city was taken on 13 April. The 83rd Division established a bridgehead over the river. On 11 April 1945 the 83rd Division encountered Langenstein-Zwieberge ,

4171-513: 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 ,

4268-462: 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

4365-558: 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

4462-480: The brigade's ammunition train was reorganized as the third 105 mm howitzer battalion, and the 155 mm howitzer battalion was formed from the 155 mm howitzer regiment. The engineer, medical, and quartermaster regiments were reorganized into battalions. In 1942, divisional quartermaster battalions were split into ordnance light maintenance companies and quartermaster companies, and the division's headquarters and military police company, which had previously been

4559-410: 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

4656-407: The camp, PFCs Norman Panagos and Irving "Ike" Olshaker of M Company, 331st Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division , report seeing German jeeps exiting the rear of the camp as the infantrymen approach the front gate. GIs were stunned at the sight and smell, and handed out what little rations and cigarettes they had on them. Excerpt from an after action report of the 78th Armored Medical Battalion concerning

4753-502: The camp, no dogs, no guards, nothing. Drew my P-38 from my holster & opened the door of the 1st barrack & found a horrible sight – emaciated men 3 to 4 to a bunk, some dead, some alive. No reaction – living zombies just stared at me. Estimated 1,000 alive. Radioed back for field hospital. Only 100 remained alive 1 week later. Took book on prisoners from headquarters and gave to my commanding officer – prisoners fed only water and potato peels." First Allied infantry soldiers to discover

4850-400: 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

4947-445: 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

SECTION 50

#1732787231320

5044-522: 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,

5141-407: 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

5238-424: 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

5335-576: 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

5432-476: The cases into the pits and the downward file was going to seek a new loading until almost complete exhaustion of the mass grave. The last bodies, in full decomposition, untransportable, remained in the hut. The S.S. responsible for the loading closed again the hut with key because there had been flights of thighs of corpses. On the evening of 9 April 1945, ahead of the advance of the American troops, who reached

5529-425: 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

5626-431: The division's cavalry reconnaissance troop, and one infantry regiment was removed by inactivation. The field artillery brigade headquarters and headquarters battery became the headquarters and headquarters battery of the division artillery. Its three field artillery regiments were reorganized into four battalions; one battalion was taken from each of the two 75 mm gun regiments to form two 105 mm howitzer battalions,

5723-508: The electrified enclosure; 7 blocks plus the appendices ( Revier , kitchen, etc.) the inn and the barn replaced. When manpower reached 5,100 prisoners, in February 1945, there were 18 blocks. Manpower decreased then (4,400 people at the beginning of April 1945), the number of deaths exceeded the number of the newcomers by far. In the week from 19 to 25 March 1945, on 1308 dead deducted for Buchenwald and its Kommandos, Langenstein-Zwieberge had

5820-624: 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

5917-693: 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

SECTION 60

#1732787231320

6014-471: The executives of the Kommando future. They were initially placed in an inn of the periphery of Langenstein , then, the convoys following one another, while waiting for the completion of the construction of the camp, in a barn, which still exists, located at the exit of the village. Six convoys arrived, from 26 September 1944 to 18 February 1945. The construction of the camp was completed in August 1944 with

6111-519: 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

6208-517: 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

6305-480: 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

6402-491: 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

6499-567: The initial movement in operation "Unicorn," the division took Le Stromberg Hill in the vicinity of Basse Konz against strong opposition, 5 November, and beat off counterattacks. Moving to the Hurtgen Forest , the 83rd Division thrust forward from Gressenich to the west bank of the Roer . It entered the Battle of the Bulge , 27 December, striking at Rochefort and reducing the enemy salient in

6596-629: 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

6693-405: The men in the hospital had dysentery. They lay there in their own excrement, too weak to move. One man, stronger than the rest, stood at the door. He wore only a short nightshirt. You could see he had no thighs, no calves, no hips. His legs were bones with great knobs for knees. His body was a skeleton covered with taut, gray skin." On 18 April all these patients were taken by military ambulances to

6790-413: 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

6887-581: The officers of the division, the division staff published the “83rd Division Bulletin,” which was renamed “The Ohioan” by 1926. The newsletter informed the division's members of such things as when and where the inactive training sessions were to be held, what the division's summer training quotas were, where the camps were to be held, and which units would be assigned to help conduct the Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC). The 83rd Division headquarters occasionally trained with

6984-685: The only surrender of a German Major General to U.S. troops, Botho Henning Elster surrendered with 18,850 men and 754 officers at the Loire bridge of Beaugency . The movement into Luxembourg was completed on 25 September. Taking Remich on the 28th and patrolling defensively along the Moselle , the 83d resisted counterattacks and advanced to the Siegfried Line defenses across the Sauer after capturing Grevenmacher and Echternach , 7 October. As

7081-568: 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

7178-428: 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

7275-799: 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

7372-655: The roles they would be expected to perform in the event the division was mobilized. Unlike the Regular and Guard units in the First Corps Area, the 83rd Division did not participate in the various Fifth Corps Area maneuvers and the Second Army maneuvers of 1936, 1940, and 1941 as an organized unit due to lack of enlisted personnel and equipment. Instead, the officers and a few enlisted reservists were assigned to Regular and Guard units to fill vacant slots and bring

7469-905: 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

7566-472: The severe physical debilitation of the prisoners. To slow the spread of sickness and death, the 83rd Division ordered the local German mayor to supply the camp with food and water, and medical supplies were requisitioned from the U.S. Army's 20th Field Hospital. In addition, the 83rd Division recovered documents for use by war crimes investigators. During the rush to the Elbe river, wartime correspondents nicknamed

7663-470: 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

7760-427: The staff of the 5th Division 's 10th Infantry Brigade at Fort Benjamin Harrison , Indiana . The subordinate infantry regiments of the division held their summer training primarily with the units of the 10th Infantry Brigade at Camp Knox and Fort Thomas, Kentucky , or Fort Benjamin Harrison. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster, trained at various posts in

7857-552: 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

7954-607: 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

8051-432: The unhappy privilege to arrive at the head, with 234 dead, in front of Ohrdruf (207) and Leau (69). As of the first days of their arrival, the deportees started to dig galleries in the still virgin site of the hills of Thekenberge . In ten months of terrible sufferings, the prisoners completed nearly 10 km of galleries, of a surface of 60.000 m. Some were enough vast to accommodate trains of coaches . Some had cost

8148-410: The unit training camps, the infantry regiments of the division rotated responsibility for conducting the infantry CMTC held at Camp Knox and Fort Thomas each year. On a number of occasions, the division participated in Fifth Corps Area or Second Army command post exercises (CPXs) in conjunction with other Regular Army units. These training events gave division staff officers opportunities to practice

8245-405: The units up to war strength for the exercises. Additionally, some officers were assigned duties as umpires or as support personnel. Before Organized Reserve infantry divisions were ordered into active military service, they were reorganized on paper as "triangular" divisions under the 1940 Tables Of Organization (TOE) . The headquarters companies of the two infantry brigades were consolidated into

8342-596: 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

8439-634: 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

8536-418: 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

8633-702: 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

8730-690: Was a formation of the United States Army in World War I and World War II . The division was activated in September 1917 at Camp Sherman, Ohio . It was initially made up of enlisted draftees from Ohio and Pennsylvania , with a cadre of Regular Army , Officers Reserve Corps , and National Army officers. Later groups of enlisted men assigned to the division to replace men transferred to other units came from Kentucky , Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The division went overseas in June 1918, and

8827-418: 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

8924-456: Was demobilized in October 1919. The shoulder sleeve insignia of the 83rd Division consists of overlapped gold letters spelling out the word "O-H-I-O" on a background of a black isosceles triangle . The insignia was selected during World War I because the division originally contained mostly Ohio draftees. The 83rd Division headquarters arrived at the port of Hoboken , New Jersey , aboard

9021-623: Was designated as the 2nd Depot Division. It supplied over 195,000 officers and enlisted men as replacements to other units in France without seeing action as a complete formation. Certain divisional units saw action, such as the 332nd Infantry Regiment , in Italy ( Battle of Vittorio Veneto ). Its commanders were Maj. Gen. Edwin F. Glenn (25 August 1917), Brig. Gen. Frederick Perkins (13 January 1918), Brig. Gen. Willard A. Holbrook (23 March 1918), and finally Maj. Gen. Edwin F. Glenn (3 April 1918). It

9118-529: 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

9215-445: 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

9312-453: 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

9409-564: 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

#319680