Before Auschwitz: The Formation of the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1933-9

Abstract

Is there any more potent a symbol for the destructive power of modern state terror than the nazi concentration camp? In the concentration camps, the nazis pioneered new methods of mass detention, abuse and extermination, driven by a lethal mix of extreme nationalism, bio-politics and racial antisemitism. During the short lifespan of the Third Reich little more than 12 years millions of prisoners were taken to concentration camps run by the SS, and subjected to humiliation and degradation, dirt and disease, fear and hunger, ruthless discipline and random violence, forced labour and mass murder. In all, some two million prisoners lost their lives, including around one million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, in Auschwitz, the largest and deadliest of all the concentration camps.1 Long before the regime's final collapse in May 1945, the concentration camp came to be known as the most notorious invention of the Third Reich. To be