German Concentration Camp Essay

The start of Concentration Camps was in Germany and was established soon after Hitler’s appointment as the chancellor in January 1933; within the time the Nazi’s came to power the SA the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous dentation camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazis police. Hitler authorized SS chief and leader Heinrich Himmler to centralize the administration of the Concentration camps and formalize them into a system. Himmler chose SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke for this task. Eicke had been the commandant of the SS concentration camp at Dachau since before June 1933.

After December 1934, the SS became the only agency authorized to establish and manage facilities that were formally

The Security Police had held this exclusive authority de facto since 1936. The “legal” instrument of incarceration was either the “protective detention” (Schutzhaft) order or the “preventative detention” (Vorbeugungshaft) order.

The Gestapo could issue a “protective detention” order for persons considered a political danger after 1933. The Criminal Police could issue a “preventative detention” order after December 1937 for persons considered to be habitual and professional criminals, or to be engaging in what the regime defined as “asocial” behavior. Neither order was subject to judicial review, or any review by any German agency outside of the German Security Police. After Nazi Germany unleashed World War II in September 1939, vast new territorial conquests and larger groups of potential prisoners led to the rapid expansion of the concentration camp system to the east. The war did not change the original function of the concentration camps as detention sites for the incarceration of political enemies. The climate of national emergency that the conflict granted to the Nazi leaders, however, permitted the SS to expand the functions of the