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106-633: Sachsenhausen ( German pronunciation: [zaksn̩ˈhaʊzn̩] ) or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg , Germany , used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin 's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili ; assassin Herschel Grynszpan ; Paul Reynaud ,

212-495: 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

318-540: A German court ruled that Formanek was unfit to stand trial, though an appeal is likely. In spite of the German case against Formanek, it has also been acknowledged that Formanek had previously served 10 years of a 25 year prison sentence in a Soviet prison after being captured by Red Army forces in 1945. After the Soviets vacated the site, it was used for some years by East Germany's " Kasernierte Volkspolizei ", notionally

424-514: 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

530-624: 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

636-602: A few months after the founding of the GDR , the last Soviet camps were dissolved. About 8,000 prisoners were released from Special Camp No. 1, and a smaller group was transported to the Soviet Union . The NKVD transferred 5,500 prisoners to the GDR authorities. Among them were 1,119 women and about 30 children born in the camp (so-called "Landeskinder") were transferred to the GDR women's prison at Hoheneck/Stollberg . The injustice of

742-523: A few months. In 1956, those who were still alive were released and sent back to Germany. The Dutch sought the extradition from Czechoslovakia of Antonín Zápotocký , who became President of Czechoslovakia, for his alleged role in the murder of Dutch prisoners during his time as a kapo at the camp. In the GDR, various subsequent trials took place against members of the SS guards of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, such as Roland Puhr and Arnold Zöllner. Puhr

848-399: 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

954-517: A gas chamber after 1943. In 1941, an adjacent sand pit was enlarged and made into an "execution trench". Camp punishments could be harsh. Some would be required to assume the "Sachsenhausen salute" where a prisoner would squat with his arms outstretched in front. There was a marching strip around the perimeter of the roll call ground, where prisoners had to march over a variety of surfaces, to test military footwear; between 25 and 40 kilometres (16 and 25 mi) were covered each day. Prisoners assigned to

1060-414: 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

1166-535: A medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone , the structure was used by the NKVD as NKVD special camp Nr. 7 . Today, Sachsenhausen is open to the public as a memorial. The camp was established in 1936. It was located 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Berlin, which gave it

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1272-478: 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,

1378-489: 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

1484-559: A police division and in reality a precursor of the country's own National People's Army , which was formally established in 1956. In 1956, planning began for the adaptation of the concentration camp site as a national memorial. This was inaugurated four years later on 23 April 1961 by Walter Ulbricht , First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). The first director of the renamed "Sachsenhausen National Memorial Site" ( "Nationale Mahn- u. Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen" )

1590-569: A primary position among the German concentration camps: the administrative centre of all concentration camps was located in Oranienburg, and Sachsenhausen became a training centre for Schutzstaffel (SS) officers (who would often be sent to oversee other camps afterwards). Initially, the camp was used to perfect the most efficient and effective execution method for use in the death camps . Given that, executions obviously took place at Sachsenhausen, especially of Soviet prisoners of war . During

1696-567: A result of the poor living conditions. Many were executed or died as the result of brutal medical experimentation. In 1937, the SS constructed a Cell Block for the punishment, interrogation, and torture of prisoners. Important people confined there included Martin Niemöller and Georg Elser . From 1939 until 1943, over 600 homosexual prisoners were killed. In November 1940, the SS executed 33 Polish prisoners by firing squad. In April 1941, over 550 prisoners were killed under Action 14f13 . In

1802-447: 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

1908-512: A trench, killing either by shooting or by hanging. While this more easily enabled group executions, it created too much initial panic among the prisoners, making them harder to control. Then small scale trials of what would go on to become the large scale, death camp gas chambers were designed and carried out. These trials showed the authorities that this method facilitated the means to murder the largest number of prisoners without "excessive" initial panic. So by September 1941, when they were conducting

2014-681: A year before being executed in February/March 1945. Survivors of Operation Checkmate , a 1942 commando anti-shipping operation in Norway, including their leader, John Godwin , RN, were held at Sachsenhausen until February 1945, when they were executed. Godwin managed to wrestle the pistol of the firing party commander from his belt and shot him dead before being himself shot. The Zellenbau of about 80 cells held some of World War II's most persistent Allied escapees as well as German dissidents, Nazi deserters and nationalists from East Europe such as

2120-427: Is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to a device for detecting or reacting to physical movement. Such tripwires may be attached to one or more mines – especially fragmentation or bounding mines – in order to increase the area where triggering may occur. . Trip wires are frequently used in booby traps —where either a tug on the wire, or the release of tension on it, will trigger

2226-714: 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

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2332-627: 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

2438-717: The 1934 purge of the SA , the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later 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

2544-725: 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

2650-460: The Bank of England never found them. Plans had been made to drop British pounds over London by plane. Today, these notes are considered very valuable by collectors. An industrial area, outside the western camp perimeter, contained SS workshops in which prisoners were forced to work; those unable to work had to stand at attention for the duration of the working day. Heinkel , the aircraft manufacturer,

2756-537: 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

2862-569: 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

2968-429: The Oranienburg concentration camp . That summer, those prisoners began clearing an 80 hectares (200 acres) of triangular forested area. By 1937, the prisoners had erected prisoners' barracks and SS guards' quarters, and SS officers' families housing. The "protective custody" internment camp was laid out in an isosceles triangle with sides 600 m (2,000 ft) long. Tower A was at its central control point, linked to

3074-525: The Polish 2nd Infantry Division . According to an article published on 13 December 2001 in The New York Times : "In the early years of the war the SS practiced methods of mass killing there that were later used in the Nazi death camps. Of the roughly 30,000 wartime victims at Sachsenhausen, most were Soviet prisoners of war". After the last of the liberated concentration camp prisoners had left

3180-566: 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

3286-547: The United States Army 's Sapper Leader Course . That year it was introduced to students attending the course, and it was later used in combat for this purpose by U.S. troops in the Iraq War . Another detection method is the use of green line lasers to illuminate and thus expose trip and command wires. The bright laser beam reflects off the tripwire and can be seen by the user. A tripwire may be installed in

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3392-535: 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

3498-644: The death marches . Museums commemorating 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

3604-419: 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

3710-526: The German military, the nature and use there of D-IX specifically (especially experimentation upon Sachsenhausen prisoners) lacks enough substantiation to be considered credible, though experiments by the Nazis upon unwilling prisoners utilizing psychoactive compounds is far from myth, and could hardly be ruled outside the realm of plausibility. Seven men of the British Army's No. 2 Commando, captured after

3816-860: 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

3922-577: 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

4028-532: The Munich II Regional Court. In March 2009 Josias Kumpf, 83 was deported from Wisconsin back to Austria after having been found to have been a SS Guard at KZ Sachsenhausen and Trawniki . In May 2022, a trial began in Germany against a SS guard at KZ Sachsenhausen of SS-Rottenführer Josef Schütz age 101. The next month, Schütz would be convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, becoming

4134-742: 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 . Trip wire A tripwire

4240-562: The Nazis from the prisoners), scale models of the camp, pictures, documents and other artifacts illustrating life in the camp. The administrative buildings from which the entire German concentration camp network was run have been preserved and can also be seen. As of 2015, the site of the Sachsenhausen camp, at 22, Strasse der Nationen in Oranienburg, is open to the public as a museum and a memorial. Several buildings and structures survive or have been reconstructed, including guard towers,

4346-513: 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 ,

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4452-404: The SS troop camp outside along the central axis. The entire camp could be viewed by the SS command staff from Tower A. Initially 18 hectares (44 acres) in area, the camp eventually grew to cover 400 hectares (990 acres). Designed by Bernhard Kuiper, Himmler called Sachsenhausen a "completely new concentration camp for the modern age, which can be extended at any time." In practice, however, extending

4558-462: 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

4664-521: The Sachsenhausen National Memorial Site was politically instrumentalised in the GDR, especially during the celebrations for the liberation of the concentration camp. After German reunification , the former camp was entrusted to a foundation that opened a museum on the site. So since 1993, the "Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen" ( Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum ) has been responsible for exhibitions and research on

4770-666: The Sachsenhausen memorial, where the official celebrations of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were held, was located in the former concentration camp. It was controlled by the Ministry of Culture, and as the National Memorial Sites Buchenwald and Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen served as place of identification and legitimisation of the GDR. The government of East Germany emphasised the suffering of political prisoners over that of

4876-699: The Ukrainian leader Taras Bulba-Borovets whom the Nazis hoped to persuade to change sides and fight the Soviets. Over the course of its operation, over 100 Dutch resistance fighters were executed at Sachsenhausen. Dutch Freemasons were also sent to the camp including the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands , Hermannus van Tongeren sr.  [ nl ] , who died there in March 1941, after being arrested by Klaus Barbie . At

4982-558: 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

5088-402: The autumn of 1941, over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot. In May 1942, the first hangings commenced from gallows in the roll-call area. These continued until 1945. In May 1942, 71 Dutch resistance fighters and 250 Jewish hostages were executed. In May 1942, "Station Z" was completed in an industrial yard outside the camp walls. It included prisoner killing rooms, four crematoria, and

5194-609: The camp doctor Heinz Baumkötter , as well as two Kapos , were brought to trial on 23 October 1947 before a Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin. On 1 November 1947, all sixteen of them were found guilty. Fourteen defendants were given life sentences with hard labor, including Kaindl and Baumkötter, and two others were sentenced to fifteen years in prison with hard labor. They served their time under harsh conditions in Siberian labor camps. Six of them, including Kaindl, died in custody within

5300-539: The camp entrance, crematory ovens and the camp barracks. With the fall of communist East Germany, it was possible to conduct excavations in the former camps. At Sachsenhausen, the bodies of 12,500 victims were found; most were children, adolescents and elderly people. Following the discovery in 1990 of mass graves from the Soviet period, a separate museum was opened documenting the camp's Soviet-era history. Between 1945 and 1950, 12,000 people died of hunger and disease in

5406-541: The camp prison would be kept in isolation on poor rations and some would be suspended from posts by their wrists tied behind their backs ( strappado ). In cases such as attempted escape, there would be a public hanging in front of the assembled prisoners. Prisoners of war were made to run up to 40 km (25 mi) a day with heavy packs, sometimes after being given performance-boosting drugs like cocaine, to trial military boots in tests commissioned by shoe factories. Wolfgang Wirth  [ de ] did experiments using

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5512-410: 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

5618-479: The camp's SS staff ordered 33,000 inmates on a forced march northwest. Most of the prisoners were physically exhausted and thousands did not survive this death march; those who collapsed en route were shot by the SS. The march ended near Raben Steinfeld in early May, after liberation by the Red Army and US Army. On 22 April 1945, the camp's remaining 3,400 inmates were liberated by the 1st Belorussian Front and

5724-494: The camp's history on the grounds of the former Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The educational work of the institution focuses on the history of the Oranienburg concentration camp , various aspects of the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the Soviet special camp and the history of the memorial itself. The museum features artwork created by inmates and a 30-centimetre (12 in) high pile of gold teeth (extracted by

5830-400: 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

5936-445: 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

6042-522: 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,

6148-407: 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

6254-576: 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

6360-425: 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

6466-457: The concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in 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

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6572-799: The continued use of the National Socialist concentration camps by the Soviet occupying power and the renewed agonising deaths of thousands of people associated with it were concealed or played down by the SED regime. During the Waldheim trials , some survivors of the Soviet camp in Sachsenhausen were sentenced to imprisonment in Bautzen or Waldheim . Many women were among the inmates of Sachsenhausen and its subcamps. According to SS files, more than 2,000 women lived in Sachsenhausen, guarded by female SS staff ( Aufseherin ). Camp records show that there

6678-443: The design proved impractical. There was an infirmary inside the southern angle of the perimeter and a camp prison within the eastern angle. There was also a camp kitchen and a camp laundry. The camp's capacity became inadequate and the camp was expanded in 1938 by a new rectangular area (the "small camp") northeast of the entrance gate and the perimeter wall was altered to enclose it. There was an additional area ( Sonderlager ) outside

6784-508: The earlier stages of the camp's existence, the executions were done by placing the prisoners in a small room, often even with music playing, called the Genickschussbaracke (English: Shot in the neck barrack ) and told they were to have their height and weight measured but were instead shot in the back of the neck through a sliding door located behind the neck. This was found to be far too time-consuming, so they then trialled

6890-547: The end of 1944, Himmler ordered the execution of every prisoner. Sick inmates were executed in the industrial yard, including at least 2,000, or transferred to death camps. In February 1945, more than 1,300 prisoners were executed during the evacuation of the Lieberose forced labor camp , a subsidiary of Sachsenhausen. With the advance of the Red Army in the spring of 1945, Sachsenhausen was prepared for evacuation. On 21 April,

6996-569: 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

7102-693: 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

7208-424: The explosives. Soldiers sometimes detect the presence of tripwires by spraying the area with Silly String . It will settle to the ground in areas where there are no wires. Where wires are present, the "strings" will rest on the taut wires without triggering the explosive, due to its light weight. Its use in detecting tripwires was first discovered in 1993 by Sergeant First Class David B. Chandler, Chief Instructor of

7314-460: The extermination facility, almost all buildings from the former concentration camp were used again (especially the wooden barracks, the camp prison and the utility buildings). Towards the end of 1945, the camp was again fully occupied (12,000 people). In the following year, up to 16,000 people were imprisoned in the camp at times. About 2,000 female prisoners lived in a separate area of the camp. By 1948, Sachsenhausen, now renamed "Special Camp No. 1",

7420-533: The first trials of this method at Auschwitz , Sachsenhausen had already been the scene of "some gassings in conjunction with the development of gas vans ". The prisoners were also used as a workforce, with a large task force of prisoners from the camp sent to work in the nearby brickworks to meet Albert Speer 's vision of rebuilding Berlin. In July 1936, the Esterwegen concentration camp and Columbia concentration camp were closed and those prisoners moved to

7526-519: 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

7632-573: 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

7738-480: 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

7844-491: 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

7950-604: The highly successful Operation Musketoon , were executed at Sachsenhausen. They were shot on 23 October 1942, five days after Adolf Hitler issued his Commando Order calling for the killing of all captured members of commando units. Four SOE agents led by Lt Cdr Mike Cumberlege RNR, who took part in the 1943 Operation Locksmith in Greece intended to blow up the Corinth Canal and were captured in May 1943, were held in Sachsenhausen's Zellenbau isolation cells for more than

8056-639: The lethal sulfur mustard gas. There have also been allegations of an experimental drug tested upon unwilling inmates in 1944 designated " D-IX " at the Sachsenhausen facility. Designed to increase stamina and endurance, this drug, supposedly consisting of a cocktail of cocaine, methamphetamine ( Pervitin ), and oxycodone ( Eukodal ), was designed to see use from members of the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe to enhance mission performance where endurance and exhaustion become pertinent issues. While these drugs were used in their individual forms by all branches of

8162-402: The main camp perimeter to the north; this consisted of two huts Sonderlager 'A' and 'B' built in 1941 for special prisoners that the regime wished to isolate. The neutral zone was located between the camp wall and the prisoners' camp. Between the zone and the wall was a trip wire , cheval de frise , barbed-wire obstacles, an electrified barbed-wire fence, and a sentry path. Sachsenhausen

8268-629: 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

8374-413: 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

8480-516: The oldest surviving Nazi fugitive to be convicted. In August 2023, charges were brought against a former SS guard who served in Sachsenhausen Guard Battalion, Gregor Formanek. Despite the possibility that Formanek may also be the potentially last former Sachenshausen Nazi officer to stand trial, it was acknowledged that his ability to stand trial was unlikely, due to limited capacity for understanding and will. In June 2024,

8586-537: The other groups detained at Sachsenhausen. The memorial obelisk contains eighteen red triangles, the symbol the Nazis gave to political prisoners, usually communists. There is a plaque in Sachsenhausen built in memory of the Death March. This plaque has a picture of malnourished male prisoners marching, all of whom are wearing the red triangle of a political prisoner. Based on reporting in the newspaper Neues Deutschland , historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf shows how

8692-630: The penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic ; Francisco Largo Caballero , prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria ; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera ; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents. Sachsenhausen was a labour camp, outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and

8798-568: 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

8904-428: 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

9010-854: 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

9116-905: 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

9222-409: The site in the summer of 1945, the camp was used as a special camp by the Soviet military administration from August 1945 until 1950. Nazi functionaries were held in the camp, as were political prisoners and inmates sentenced by Soviet Military Tribunals . In the beginning, 150 prisoners from NKVD special camp Nr. 7 Weesow near Werneuchen arrived in Sachsenhausen. Apart from the crematorium and

9328-558: The site. The destroyed section of the huts are now a Jewish museum with the surviving section left as it was immediately after the fire with the paint still blistered from the flames. Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than 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

9434-470: 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

9540-464: The so-called Speziallager . The compound has been vandalized by neo-Nazis several times. In September 1992, barracks 38 and 39 of the Jewish Museum were severely damaged in an arson attack. The perpetrators were arrested, and the barracks were reconstructed by 1997. However, it is important to note that the decision was taken that no buildings built during the Nazi regime will be rebuilt on

9646-552: 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

9752-555: 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

9858-634: 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

9964-418: 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

10070-702: 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

10176-473: Was Christian Mahler , at one time a senior police officer , who back in the Nazi period had been an inmate at Sachsenhausen between 1938 and 1943. The plans involved the removal of most of the original buildings and the construction of an obelisk, statue and meeting area, reflecting the outlook of the government of East Germany of that time. Other than the memorial sites in Buchenwald and Ravensbrück ,

10282-524: Was a major user of Sachsenhausen labour, using between 6,000 and 8,000 prisoners on their He 177 bomber. Although official German reports claimed the prisoners were "working without fault", some of these aircraft crashed unexpectedly around Stalingrad and it is suspected that prisoners had sabotaged them. Other firms included AEG and Siemens . Prisoners also worked in a brick factory. Overall, at least 30,000 inmates died in Sachsenhausen from causes such as exhaustion, disease, malnutrition and pneumonia, as

10388-418: 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

10494-610: Was executed in 1964, while Zöllner was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Rostock District Court in 1966. In the Federal Republic of Germany, there were also various follow-up trials against guards members, such as the Sachsenhausen trials in Cologne in the 1960s. In 1960, a trial against SS-Hauptscharführer and Blockführer Richard Bugdalle for the murder of concentration camp inmates took place before

10600-529: 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

10706-445: 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

10812-461: Was one male SS soldier for every ten inmates and for every ten male SS there was a woman SS. Several subcamps for women were established in Berlin, including in Neukölln . Sachsenhausen female guards included Ilse Koch , and later Hilde Schlusser. Anna Klein is also known to have worked at the camp. Fourteen of the concentration camp's officials, including former commandant Anton Kaindl and

10918-453: 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

11024-476: Was the largest of three special camps in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The 60,000 people interned over five years included 6,000 German officers transferred from Western Allied camps. Others were Nazi functionaries, anti-Communists and Russians, including Nazi collaborators. By the time the camp was closed in the spring of 1950, at least 12,000 had died of malnutrition and disease. In spring 1950,

11130-414: Was the site of Operation Bernhard , one of the largest currency counterfeiting operations ever recorded. The Germans forced inmate artisans to produce forged American and British currency, as part of a plan to undermine the British and American economies, courtesy of Sicherheitsdienst (SD) chief Reinhard Heydrich . The Germans introduced fake British £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes into circulation in 1943:

11236-511: 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

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