The Nazi Concentration Camps, 1933-1939

by Goeschel, Christian; Wachsmann, Nikolaus; Osers, Ewald

• ISBN13: 9780803227828
• ISBN10: 0803227825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime established the first concentration camps in Germany. Initially used for real and suspected political enemies, the camps increasingly came under SS control and became sites for the repression of social outsiders and German Jews. Terror was central to the Nazi regime from the beginning, and the camps gradually moved toward the center of repression, torture, and mass murder during World War II and the Holocaust. This collection brings together revealing primary documents on the crucial origins of the Nazi concentration camp system in the prewar years between 1933 and 1939, which have been overlooked thus far. Many of the documents are unpublished and have been translated into English for the first time. These documents provide insight into the camps from multiple perspectives, including those of prisoners, Nazi officials, and foreign observers, and shed light on the complex relationship between terror, state, and society in the Third Reich.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: The Prewar Nazi Concentration Camps	p. ix
Translator's Note	p. xxix
List of Abbreviations	p. xxxi
The Early Camps, 1933-1934	p. 1
The Nazi Regime and the Camps	p. 4
Life and Death Inside	p. 29
The Prisoners	p. 42
The Camps and the Public	p. 49
The SS Concentration Camp System	p. 71
Heinrich Himmler and the Creation of the ss Camp System	p. 73
Ways into the Concentration Camps	p. 95
The Camps in the Nazi Web of Terror	p. 109
The ss Economy and the Camps	p. 131
Running the Camps	p. 141
Theodor Eicke and the Concentration Camps	p. 144
The Leaders of the Camp ss	p. 167
Rank-and-File Guards	p. 176
Life and Death in the Camps	p. 189
Daily Rituals and General Conditions	p. 191
Self-Assertion	p. 209
Violence and Punishment	p. 216
Prisoner Groups	p. 229
Prisoner Categories	p. 231
Political Prisoners	p. 239
Social Outsiders	p. 253
Jews	p. 263
Women	p. 277
The Camps and the Public	p. 287
The Camps in Nazi Propaganda	p. 289
Foreign Views on the Camps	p. 304
The Camps and German Society	p. 317
Timeline	p. 329
Daily Inmate Numbers in ss Concentration Camps, 1935-1939	p. 333
ss Ranks and Equivalents in the Wehrmacht and the U.S. Army	p. 335
Notes	p. 337
Bibliography	p. 375
Index	p. 399
Map
ss Concentration Camps, 1934-1939	p. xxxii
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