HISTORY OF KONZENTRATIONSLAGERN-(CONCENTRATION CAMPS ) IN NAZI GERMANY & OCCUPIED COUNTRIES 1933 to 1945.

These camps were known in Germany as abbreviated KL`s (official) or KZ (pronounced KA-TSETT or cart-zet), which was generally used in speech.Both abbreviations were frequently used and every German knew what they meant! Sometimes they were also referred to as "Stammlagers" (POW Camps).

When Hermann Göring was the Minister of the Interior* after the Nazis election win in January 1933, he set up these camps, to be run by the Party's para military units-the Sturm Abteilung or SA (Brownshirts), he meant them to contain ONLY political opponents such as Communists and anti-Nazis. At the end of 1933 there were over 150,000 Communist &SPDmembers/supporters confined in 100 KZ's in Germany!

In 1934 the SS took over the responsibility for the KZ`s, and suddenly they became filled with all and sundry and mainly classed as "anti-social" and therefore harmful to Nazism.Gypsies, prostitutes, pimps, priests and religious freaks were hounded, rounded up and put in these early camps.If Jews were in them it was not because they were Jews, but because they were in one of the above categories at that time.

* At the same time Göring had set up an elite police unit of his own whose principle task was to seek out and "get rid of" Communists and other "enemies of the State". This unit was formed from members of the Prussian Political Police Department, and was known initially as "Polizeiabteilung zbV-Wecke", after its first commander, police major ????? Wecke. The unit consist was 414 personnel, and officially came into being on 25th February 1933. It was formed along the lines of the Luftwaffe, first as a Brigade, then as a Division, and finally as a Panzer Corps. It modelled the SS Division Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler" and Grossdeutschland" and was named the "Hermann Göring Division" under the command of Paul Conrath, then an Oberst promoted to General-Major, and finally to General-Leutnant as the group expanded. The unit's original commander, Wecke, was hanged in Prague alongside Obergruppenführer Karl Frank, in 1947.

The SS had an eye to the future and saw that these people would become a pool of cheap labor, both in the preparation for war and a resource for the war effort itself. However, there was agenuine belief that inmates of these camps could be "re-educated" by a spell inside them, and release was possible with good behavior. To go back in for a second stint however, was a trip to hell and back-since one was given "special treatment" When war came in September 1939, German citizens could be placed in a KZ by the Gestapo (Political Police), for refusing to do military service, working in a munitions factory or coal-mine.

In the occupied lands the same rule applied to Volksdeutsche, (Germans living outside Germany with foreign citizenship), If the citizen was Polish, French or from some other occupied land, they could be sent to a KZ for refusing to obey a direction to work in a factory or even for answering back! Many inmates were branded as "BV's - Befristete Vorbengungshaft"-prisoners who had already served his/her official sentence for criminal offences in a State prison. "BV" was also referred to as "Their destiny took them where they had to go"!

The Gestapo would discuss with the Commandant the details of the "crime" and instruct him what punishment was to be administered. (This was usually in writing and handed to the Commandant by the escorting Gestapo escort in the presence of the resident KZ Gestapo officer).

Each KZ had its own social hierachy. When they were under RSHA control (June 1934 to March 1942), the "Criminal" inmates were the inmate "controllers", but this changed when the WVHA took control of the KZ`s in 1942, when the "Politicals" became the inmate "controllers". These politicals were Communists, and they gained contol through unheard violence, by a series of plots and a large number of murders between the inmates themselves, so much that it split the SS. Once the power struggle changed, the history of the KZ`s also changed, and took on a new course. By 1942-43, the majority of KZ inmates were from Eastern Europe, and it wasn`t until 1944-45 that Westerners started to fill the camps.

A network developed along two main lines of force. The "Main" camps, which were powerful complexes built along the lines of terror in Germany and the occupied countries, and the other line was the satelite complexes which came about as a result of the change from RSHA to WVHA control. The latter were set up for economic and geographic necessity. There were some 900 such satelite camps attached to 20 "Main" KZ`s in 1945!

Some selected inmates, both political and criminal, became KAPO`s (Camp police). KAPO`s had an easier life, got extra rations and had their own room in the barrack block. KAPO`s were the link between the prisoners and the SS supervising staff.

The SS took great care to register an inmates real or pretended qualification or skill upon arrival at a KZ, meticulously recording it with teutonic efficiency! The inmates were surprisingly thorough in this registration process, no doubt to look after themselves! To get into a factory was a much sought after priviledge, and could mean the difference between life and death. The harshest treatment was preferable to life working in a quarry for instance, or out in the bitter cold digging ditches!

In the late 1930`s camps sprang up all over Germany, built by the inmates themselves. All were proper self-contained industries with carpentry shops, electricical workshops, kitchens, tuck-shops, hair-dressing rooms-the inmates all the required skills!

As war progressed more and more KZ labor was used in the production factories. Much of this labor was female and to supervise them many women were "drafted" into the SS-Konzentrationslagerdienst, the Concentration Camp Service as supervisors. These women, some 500 in total, were really auxilliaries and mostly very young, and who had previously been directed to work in factories by the DAF Labor Office, and, as a result, they had acquired some work experience. The SS then ordered the factory owners to provide these trained women as supervisors to control the labor force. The SS paid the supervisors wages out of the charge they put on the factory owners for the labor they had supplied. The female supervisors were known as "Aufsehrinen", and they had the task of parading the inmates in the KZ, supervising their escort to and from places of work, overseeing kitchen workers, laundry and other camp duties. Male SS NCO`s generally supervised stores, cookhouses, working groups and parades. The female supervisors (known as Wardresses or Aufseherinnen), had a chief supervisor (Oberaufserherin), who was directly responsible to the Commandant, although this was seldom practised since unless something went wrong, they were left to rule the roost!

Hitler had always wanted the KZ system as part of his plan for the "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem, that is, for the killing of Jews. Himmler was smarter-to him the camps were a source of cheap labor, all the more to build his (envisaged) industrial economic empire. He saw five differents types of camp in his system:

*Training and Labor, like Ravensbrück, where the female SS staff got their supervisory schooling.
*Labor and Transit, like Gross Rosen.
*Labor and Experimental, like Natzweiler.
*Special for Prominents & Sick, like Bergen-Belsen, and
*Extermination for those considered unfit for production use, like Birkenau (Auschwitz).

This labor could be used not only for armament production in wartime, but to help build the "New World Order" or "Greater Reich"or "Peacetime Reich" as some called his dream! It was to be the basis of the existence of millions of permanent slaves. Prisoners in factories would work 60 to 64 hours per week, although on March 9th 1944, a letter from Himmler to Göring states that the average of all prisoners on military armaments work did 240 hours per month, (55.4 hours per week). Beyond this, fatigue became apparent and costly mistakes occurred, I.e., more working hours = lower production because of increased scrap. At the same time, German workers on similar work did an average of 49.5 hours per week. In the USA at that time it was 45.5 & in the UK it was 48!!

Himmler characteristically gave assignments not to groups, but to individuals,and, if possible, one and the same assignment to several people. Although he had no reason to think that any of his functionaries was growing too powerful with his office than he(Himmler) himself. He was an opportunist of the day and loved to assign individuals a day at a time, pick them up and then drop them again. The trouble was that his assignments often went to individuals who were corrupt, stodgy, incapable, untrained, that no true leadership impulse could come from them! Perhaps that`s why he appointed them in the first place! It was he that had to approve the KZ staff appointments-no one else.

In August 1944 there were some 7.652 million non-German workers in German industry. Some of these were volunteers, including those that had been pressured. There were POW`s and forced foreign laborers of which 1.930 million Russian and Allied POW`s from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Holland and France etc., The foreign laborers pushed this figure up to over 5 million. All were put to work in construction, bomb damage clearance, coal mining, rock breaking, earth mining and work in factories which were frequently being bombed by the Allies. There were professional engineers, medical doctors, journalists, architects, radio technicians, as well as unskilled workers. Some were able to find a niche for themselves and "sit out the the war the best way possible under the given circumstances" (It beat peeling potatoes!!)

Allied POW`s did all these things mainly to escape the utter boredom of cooped-up camp life-those that is that weren't busy digging tunnels!

The following figures for 1944 show that many of these workers were held in KZ`s and their many associated labor camps. The list is incomplete:

Dachau-17,300
Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen-26,500**
Natzweiler-2,200
Buchenwald-17,600
Mauthausen-21,000
Flossenburg-4,800
Neuengamme-9,800
Auschwitz I & III-74,000 (48,000 male; 26,000 female)
Gross-Rosen-5,000**
Belsen-Bergen-3,300
Stutthoff-5,300.(3,800 male;500 female)
Lublin(also known as Majdanek)-15,400. (11,500 male; 3,900 female)
Ravensbrück-15,100. (3,000 male & 14,100 female)
Hertzogenbosch/Vught-2,500**
An all up total at that time of 224,000 prisoners available for work!
NOTE:
Figures are not included for the following KZ's:
Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
Salaspils
Sobibor
Chelmno
Belzec
Treblinka
Lichtenburg**
Schirmek**
Theresienstadt
Brinlitz
Compiegne**
Kaiserwald-Riga
Mauthausen
Neubreme**
Nordhausen-Dora
Ohrdruf
Plaszow
Salaspils
Westerbork
Breendonk**
Neuengamme
Stutthoff
Allach**
Markstadt**
Leonberg**
Nettengamme**
Brandenburg**
Papenburg**
Königstein**
Sonnenburg**
Gleina**
Rehmsdorf**
Erzahlungen**
Naumark**
Gardelegen

Details on each of the above KZ`s & their staff are given separately in highlighted alphabetical files. To view, click on that file. (Note:**Some files are still under construction)!

In March 1945 the KZ system held some 480,000 healthy prisoners plus a further 480,000 sick and unhealthy. In January 1945, they held 487,290 male and 156,000 female prisoners. This number of males required an SS guard staff of 36,454, and consequently tied down some 33,000 soldiers for front-line duty-enough to provide for three Divisions!

Hitler was never kept fully informed of these numbers. The SS hierachy in particular, had misinformed him about the true function of the KZ`s. Hitler had believed what he had been told, which was that they were being used to destroy Jews and other "undesirables". This was of course true of Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and the other Polish KZ`s, but what Hitler wasn't told was that the SS was making huge profits from prisoner labor, and that in the latter months of the war, Himmler, and other SS generals were secretly negotiating a peace deal with the Allies behind his back!

Among these men was OGf. Dr. Hans Kämmler, the man placed in charge of the V2 (A4) rocket program in August 1944. This engineer was using KZ inmate labor, transferred from the Buchenwald KZ near Weimar after heavy Allied bombing there, had necessitated this. He had the mine caves in the Harz Mountains near Nordhausen enlarged, and production carried on there. Kammler wanted to trade details of the A4 program with the US in exchange for his freedom, and had been one of the circle of plotters trying to get rid of Hitler.

Kämmler had arranged for the transportation of his engineers and officers, including General Dornberger and von Braun, whilst at the ski resort of Oberjochin, to surrender to US military forces. However, Kämmler`s Aides shot him in Prague during the final days of the war - as was quite common practice, since the SS generally treated such acts as treasonable or desertion. Von Braun and a number of his engineer and scientist companions did manage to get themselves captured by the Americans, who very quickly shipped them off to the US after they had seached out their documents in the archives and removed any incriminating evidence from them!!!

Armaments Minister Albert Speer in his book "Albert Speer - The Slave State", said that the following was relevant with reference to KZ statistics:
* 74 (SS) guards were required for every 1000 inmates when on work detail.
* Skilled inmates were paid RM6 per day. Unskilled RM4 per day. Average was RM4.75 per day.
* Basic pay for SS guards was RM203 per month. A Hauptsturmführer was paid RM575 per month.
* At the end of October 1943 there were 12,664 guards of various ranks on the SS payroll.
* The total annual bill for for all guards was RM18 million. As at June 30th 1944 the KZ guard strength had risen to 24,000!
* There were 556 barracks, each costing RM41K including earthworks. Total cost = RM20.3 million.Expected life of each barrack was 10 years. Each was designed to hold up to 300 inmates, eventually they had to hold uo to 400.
* On top of guard and housing costs were added other overheads such as beurocracy (Gestapo/Security), prison maitenance, food, heating, lighting, toileting and medical attention etc.,
* Income from labor receipts to the KZ administration was RM671,600 annually or RM1,840 per day. However, as the inmates became ill or unhealthy, half of this income was devoured by overheads to such an extent that the income for the year 1943 was reduced to about RM506K!
* For some interesting statistics of SS controlled "factories" referred to by Hermann Pister, one of Buchenwald's Commandants, as being unprofitable; refer to his profile.

NOTE: The average wartime income for German workers was RM50 per week which continued on until immediately after the war when new currency was issued in the new West zone.

In June 1939 RM12 = 1 Pound Sterling. In July 1940 the value was RM9.60 to 1 Pound. After the war a new West D-Mark was worth 2/- Stg or DM10 to the Pound, or DM2.5 to the US Dollar. This rate was still current in 1953/54.

KZ COMMANDANTS AND THEIR STAFF.

The primary role of a Commandant was the security of his KZ; the re-education of his charges and to prevent their escape. His secondary role was to comply with the (purple coloured) stereotyped orders and instructions issued by his superiors, and to be responsible for the proper financial management and staff within his KZ.

Within the SS hierachy, Kommandants were usually middle-level management types (major to Lieut.Colonel), although some were of lower officer rank in the smaller and sub-camps.

Kommandants spent a large part of their time sitting at their desks signing letters, memo's, reports and drafting daily orders covering staff routine etc., They were also required to frequently visit satelite camps and extension works, and for this reason would frequently be away from their desks.

All KZ Commandants were specially selected by Himmler. They stood out from their SS colleagues by their fanatiscism and emotional allegiance to the Nazi Party's struggle, that is to say that among millions of other Nazis, they reacted to the political , (fight against Communism), economic, (massive unemployment & inflation), and the intellectual and pshycological chaos of post WWI Germany. To them the Party promised revolution and a change for the better, and like millions of others, the charismatic nature of Adolf Hitler intoxicated them.

These men were the early members of the Nazi Party-the "Old Fighter`s" Some had been imprisoned in Landau with Hitler after the failed attempt to overthrow the Bavarian Government in the "Beer Hall Putsch". Some were former SA men who had transferred to the SS, "because they saw themselves more select than the SA rabble"

As Commandants, they justified their existence as the "preservers of State security", and understood this to mean internal security-political activity to enhance the Nazi regime. They ALL saw themselves very much as soldiers. Indeed, many of them were ex-WWI servicemen before they joined the SS as unpaid volunteers. Many were from the middle and working classes. The latter were unlikely to make officer rank in the German Wehrmacht of the 1920`s and 1930`s. Some of the Commandants had completed their high school studies and had gained diplomas, many hadn`t, but as former soldiers;Hans Helwig (Sachsenhausen), served in the army for 18 years, Hermann Barranowski (Sachsenhausen), had served in the army for nearly 22 years, and Jakob Weisborn (Flossenburg), had served in the navy for 18 years. They had gained military experience which would help them in their duties.

Nearly all the Commandants grew up in families which had preached nationalism and patriotism. They had all been taught to obey without question, and to toe the line.

When an SS man put on his uniform he knew his place in German society. To him it represented the symbols of patriotism and even virility. When promotions came however slight, it was taken as a measure of personal power.

The personal files of Commandants contained date which indicated an exceptional physical condition. For this reason they saw themselves as "solid" men. Promotion and appointment to Commandant of a KZ provided them with the opportunity to find their place in the new social order. They were part of an alternative "aristocracy" which fostered its own views and values.""They were the best and the toughest"", very proudly declared Johannes Hassebroek , one of the Commandants of the Gross-Rosen KZ, in 1975.

The SS had offered its senior men officer rank without regard to their social origin or level of education. The Wehrmacht Officer Corps hated this and tried, with contempt, to show that they never recognised these SS ranks in full. This was particularly true where W-SS units came under Wehrmacht control in the field.

Some Wehrmacht officers requested to serve in the SS KZ Service, and some too were indeed prisoners in the camps, having deserted or committed some criminal or political crime.. Most of these survived as KAPO's-they were the lucky ones-others were shot or hanged in the field in the last months of the war by roving SS Field Courts Martials, which sentenced deserters and pacifists to death, regardless of rank, on the spot and hanged them from trees and lamposts with a placard around their necks which stated that they were a traitor to Germany!

Within the hierachy of the SS, Commandants were middle-level rank officers. They ranged from Obersturmführer to Standartenführer or Oberführer.The Obersturmführers usually commanded the smaller labor and satelite camps. Pay was for the level of responsibility, not rank, as was common in the German armed forces. As an example of pay and allowances: Documents show that SS Oberführer (Colonel) Wilhelm Goeke, Commandant of Warsaw and the Kowno (Poland), camp received a base salary of RM740 per month in 1942. To this was added supplementary allowances which raised it to RM955.40. After deductions for tax and pension payments he netted RM666.13. He also received "perks" like free accommodation, the services of a cook, gardener and other servants together with a vehicle and driver. In ealy 1945 a Standartenführer (Colonel), would receive RM800 per month, plus allowances.

The lack of education and business training made Commandants poor administators, and this fact was borne out on many occasions. They had the responsibility for the proper financial accounting and discipline of their administration staff, (internal guards, food, clothing, medical and other supplies together with the education and welfare of the inmates). NOTE: After March 1942 they were not responsible for camp medical staff-this responsibility was transferred to Dr. Lolling, the chief MO at SS Headquarters in Berlin. Neither were they responsible for the guards in the towers or outside perimeter of the KZ, this being the responsibility of the local SS guard commander.

In the main, Commandants were hopeless administrators especially in financial accounting. E.g., Hans Aumeir, a one-time Commandant at Auschwitz KZ, had unrecorded sums of money in his safe. Hans Loritz, the elderly Commandant of Esterwegen KZ, said, when funds disappeared from from his accounts, "It`s unfair that such things can happen-no one ever taught us accounting"!

Not all members of the KZ command had daily contact with the inmates. There existed a "camp within a camp" situation, each with its own commander, aided by their own staff. Each could be responsible for head counts and work arrangements and the guarding of work details. Others were responsible for barracks or blocks, usually NCO`s, and overseen by an officer who would fill in for the Commandant during his temporary absences.

Education officers were responsible to the Commandant for "strengthening the ideological and political committment" of KZ staff.
The goal was to present the daily routine in the KZ as normal and recognised legitimate military style regime. Along with this was emphasised the danger that the inmates presented to German society as a whole, and to the guards in particular.

Commandants who didn't come up to expectations were dealt with quite severely. For example, Hans Loritz was relieved of his command of Esterwegen KZ, "because of his cruel treatment of prisoners". (It was strictly forbidden to beat prisoners). Two other Commandants, Adam Grünewald and Karl Chiemlewski, were tried and found guilty by an SS Court for brutality in their KZ`s. One of the earliest cases was in 1937, when Theodor Eicke, (Dachau`s second Commandant), recommended that Arthur Rodel be deposed as Commandant of Sachsenhausen, "as he`s not diplomatic with visitors to that KZ"!
The last Commandant to be disgraced was Sturmbannführer (Major) Friedrich Hartjienstein, who was in charge of Auschwitz II (Birkenau), in April 1944, when inmates on a work detail in the "Mexico" compound, which was under construction at the time, hid themselves and escaped. Walter Rosenberg alias Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler waited until dark, then made their way to Zilina in Slovakia, and then through the Allied lines to safety. Hartjienstein, after a long search which failed to find the men, sent a frantic telegram warning his chiefs in Oranienburg, Berlin,with a copy to all Gestapo units, then waited for the inevitable which came with a transfer to the Natzweiler KZ one month later, swapping positions with Josef Kramer. He was described as a failure as an SS officer!

* They all lacked imagination, initiative or courage.
* They had shallow personalities.
* They "camoflaged themselves", I.e., were grey and cold looking.
* They identified with evil, and were known as "The Soldiers of Evil"
* They were not representative of most Germans, nor of all Nazis.
* They were certainly not the tall, blue-eyed blonde types that Himmler wanted his SS men to be. (Nor was Himmler for that matter)!
* Most were short and stocky, black haired and Jewish looking.
* Most could never get equivalent rank in the Wehrmacht, even though some made it to General SS rank. (Rudolf Höss became a Brigadefuhrer )General-Major,as an Inspector of KZ`s in 1944.
* They were all early members of the Nazi Party and stood out from the beginning in vehement support of its policies. Deeper involvement of these policies was reflected by joining the SS.
* They were, in the main, poorly educated, functioning no higher than middle management level.
* They were voluntary political soldiers in the service of evil.
* No phsycologists, phsycoanalysis nor research has properly understood these individuals and their crimes. The best that can be done is to continue research in order that we may broaden our thinking.

As for the KZ Staff: So far as they were concerned, they hadn`t established policy and simply worked within the KZ framework. Orders received from above were rules which had to be obeyed. Each man or woman in the KZ Service was there as a result of the circumstancesof their life and times. Their assessment of the outcome of WWI, its aftermath and fear of the future of a life of unemployment, hunger, high inflation, the loss of a father or brother killed in the war-for what? Or their father`s return from the war, defeated and utterly rejected by the existing system. All male staff were SS volunteers who didn`t necessarily volunteer for KZ service. Some were drafted because they had been wounded in battle and therefore unfit for front-line duty. Most of the female staff were said to have been drafted into the KZ Service, but very few were keen on their job. Some staff were sadists, but most worked to the book. All were fully aware of what they were doing and did not appear to suffer much revulsion-even when they were forced at bayonet point and at the double, to shift dead bodies into huge pits with their bare hands-think about it! Finally, they all believed that the KZ`s were a necessary part of the Nazi system to "re-educate the non-believers and incarcerate those seen as a threat to the State. One can imagine the welcome an inmate would get upon arrival at a camp: "What have we here-someone we mustlook after because outside you are a threat to our security"!! This threat was heard by millions of unfortunates. In March 1944, a group arrived at the gates of the Mauthausen KZ and were greeted with the words, "Germany needs your arms. You are therefore going to work; but I want to tell you that you will never see your families again. Whoever enters this camp will leave it only by the chimney of the crematorium". What a Greeting!!

FEMALE KZ STAFF- AUFSEHERIN (WARDRESSES).

A former Commandant of the Auschwitz Complex, and later himself an Inspector of KZ`s in the WVHA, Rudolf Höss, said in his memoirs: "In spite of the tremendous recruiting throughout the Nazi Women`s Organisations, very few women volunteered to be KZ guards. The rising daily demand for female guards had to be met by force. Every armament factory to which female (KZ) inmates were detailed, had to supply a percentage of female employees as women guards. It can be understood that these companies did not send the best material, since there was a general shortage of capable female workers because of the war. These guards were given a few weeks of half-hearted training at the Ravensbrück KZ before being consigned to their duties in the various KZ`s. Since the allocations were made in Ravensbrück, they, naturally, kept the best (guards) for themselves The moral qualities of the female guards at the AuschwitzComplex, almost, without exception, were very, very, low. In Ravensbrück, the female guards had been spoiled rotten. Everything had been done to persuade them to stay in the Women`s KZ Service, and also to attract new female guards, by providing a very high standard of living. They were housed extremely well and were paid a salary which they could never have achieved in civilian life. They were never overworked in their duties. In short, Himmler and especially Pohl, wanted us to give them the greatest consideration. None came to Auschwitz voluntarily.....and from the start most of them wanted to run back to the quiet, comfortable, easy-going life at Ravensbrück. There were only three or four competent ones, and these were driven crazy by the rest who always ran around like excited chickens"
Many female KZ guards ended up appearing before the SS Court because their moral qualities, almost without exception, were very low as Höss had said. They were often caught stealing whilst collecting and recording items taken from the possessions of inmates, especially at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Despite severe punishment designed to deter them, thefts continued. Many female guards did not take their duties seriously, and most could not be depended upon. If, as punishment, they were given barracks confinement, they would consider it a priviledge, not a punishment. To them it meant that they didn`t have to go out in the cold, the rain and the snow!

It has been said that one could have an understanding in the KZ's. First you had to understand German in order to handle the camp staff. One had to know how to react to any given situation, and then move accordingly".So said Denise McAdam Clark, who was a Barrister working in France when she was arrested by the Gestapo in the summer of 1943. She had been suspected of being a Resistance worker and of having aided Allied personnel to get back to the UK. She was held in Fresnes Prison, Paris, and then sent to Ravensbruck KZ, north of Berlin. She said of the SS, "The average SS person was not fully aware of what it was they were supposed to be doing.Their duties were intellectually worked out for them, and they simply understood that when you took everything away from a person you eroded that person`s personality, and that when you take away a person`s ability of defence, you take their very name away! The SS were a special bunch, not at all representative of the German nation, but even so, their mentality was incomprehensible"

Denise made reference to Oberaufsehrin (Chief Wardress),"..... who had the nick-name "La Binz", a petite blonde with an ingenious face, quite pretty; but whenever she appeared-silence fell. "La Binz" had a big Boxer dog, and always had a riding crop. She lived with one of the male guards in a house outside the camp. She would kick a woman to death. There`s no explanation, beyond the psychological one of what happens if you take someone (who is) not very bright from a lowly background, and give them Carte-blanche power over other people, who, in normal life, were wealthier and/or better educated or of higher intelligence than they are. It's a strategy based on jealousy and revenge"

Denise was one of a number of exchange internees, driven by Canadian POW drivers in Red Cross buses under Swedish control in a party of 200 with an SS escort over 500 Kms via Ingolstadt, Konstanz, Kreutzlingen, and from there to Paris via Geneva & Annemasse.

DID THE GERMAN PUBLIC KNOW ABOUT THE KZ's?

I mentioned earlier every German knew what the abreviation KL or KZ meant!

It has often been said that they didn`t know about them or what went on in them. KZ staff and those guarding the camps were sworn to absolute secrecy.For them to talk about their places of work amongst friends or family meant that they would be given little mercy from their superiors or comrades if caught. As for the general public, there is evidence that it was deceived by statements put about by the authorities who led the public to believe that the KZ`s were simply institutions for the "re-education" of "mis-guided citizens", criminal and anti-social types. The public was convinced that everything that went on in the camps was "normal". For doubters, there was always threat of "going inside for a spell to find out for oneself"! In fact, in Germany before the war there was a popular children`s rhyme which went:

Lieber Gott, (Dear God), Mach mich fromm, (make me good), dass ich nicht (don't let me go) nach Dachau Komm! (the Dachau way)!

Postal censorship, aimed at forstalling any contact which might reveal the true state of affairs concerning the daily routine, clothing, food, bedding, discipline and work etc., was so tight that very little got to the outside world. The inmates themselves were often subjected to snap searches to ensure that no contact had been made with outsiders. The very few inmates that had been released, after convincing the authorities that they had become good citizens, were forced to promise in writing, under threat to themselves and their families, not to reveal anything about camp life. Any inmate who was "indiscreet" was liable to be sent back to the same or another camp as a "second offender" and identified (by a colored cloth badge) for all to see. (Each inmate had to wear a colored triangle on his clothing (termed a "Zebra suit or Pyjama suit"). For second offenders a "bar" was sewn above the triangle or "Winkel". A good example of one such case is as follows:

In November 1937, an inmate named Neumeyer, who had been a political prisoner at the Dachau KZ, had dared to escape. He had been at large in Munich for three days before the police picked him up. He was taken back to the camp where a special reception was awaiting his entry into the camp.The Commandant at the time, Hans Loritz, made an unusual appearance at the parade of inmates forced to attend a roll-call. Beside Neumeyer stood another man, a Munich worker, whose "crime" was to have given Neumeyer a lift on his motor cycle. Neumeyer had a placard around his neck which said, "Greetings-I`m back-here I am again! He was then given the normal 25 lashes with a cane, an he and his helper were sent off to the bunker for seven days. Neumeyer also had 30 months added to his sentence and his helper got 30 months there in Dachau!!

I visited Dachau with my wife and two teenage daughters in 1977. We spent many hours roaming around the memorial and grounds. It was difficult to imagine what went on in the place all those years ago. The gate with its "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign;the crematorium where all the executed war criminals were cremated;the stream which, if crossed by an inmate, meant certain death with a bullet from a guard in one of the towers! Yet, just outside the camp everyday Dachau citizens went about their daily chores as if the place never existed!

Ian.

SS Strength as at 23rd April 1945.

Six days before the liberation of Dachau, SS Personnel employed there on various duties (Command, administration and guards). Kommandantur Stab: (Command & Admin). Führer (Officers) = 33 Unterführer (NCO`s) = 187 Männer (Privates) = 25 SubTotal = 245
SS Sturmbann (Guards) * Führer (Officers) = 8
(From the SS Kasserne-Dachau) Unterführer = 811 Männer (Privates) = 2789 *This total included all attached sub-sections. Grand Total = 3853

Concentration Camp Terms

Concentration Camp Identity Signs worn by inmates