12. La Lager-SS

Abstract

This article gives an overview of the two main groups of perpetrators who were used in the concentration camps under the control of the “Concentration Camps Inspectorate”: the guard force and the concentration camp SS. Questions concerning organisation and structure, social profile and mentality are the focal point of consideration. While the composition of the camp guard force consisting of several tens of thousands of people changed drastically, especially during the war, the concentration camp SS was a small group of around 320 SS leaders, who were at the top of the various departments of the concentration camp command squads. These men were permanently in the concentration camps and can be regarded as the main group responsible for concentration camp terror, as the Nazis’ functional elite. At the centre of the investigation of this group are questions as to generational affiliation, social origin, functional socialisation and mentality as well as their common activity in the concentration camps, which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners.