EXHIBITION:
“ADMINISTRATION
AS A CRIME”
On 18 March 2024, the exhibition "Administration as Crime. Inspectorate of Concentration Camps" will open at the so-called building T in Oranienburg. This exhibition is an expanded and updated iteration of the 2013 presentation at the historic site in the former office of the head of the SS Concentration Camps Inspectorate. The building on Plac Heinrich Grüber now houses the tax office and the office of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation.
Sachsenhausen Memorial
From 1938 to 1945, the building served as the residence of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, responsible for overseeing the concentration camp system within the S structure. Approximately 100 SS members were responsible for determining living conditions in the camps, managing slave labour, enforcing punishments, and overseeing the entire criminal operation of the camp system. They also took care of the camp personnel's training, remuneration and equipment. To this end, the IKL created an administrative system with explicit scopes of action, procedures, and forms. This administrative apparatus and the people who ran it are at the centre of the new permanent exhibition.
The exhibition's focal point is a multi-touch table that allows visitors to explore a diverse collection of documents. These include letters written in the building and forms designed for use in the concentration camps. All abbreviations and signs, from file numbers to stamps, annotations, and signatures, are explained and discussed in a broader context.
Exhibition curator Sylvia Ehl: "The documents presented on the digital media table do not serve primarily as historical sources, but as evidence that can be studied and explored for clues. Visitors are encouraged to discover the criminal nature of the administrative actions of the SS authorities and recognise the bureaucratic processes, organisational structures and hierarchies behind the horrors of the concentration camps."
The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media in Tübingen. It was created as part of an extended project to digitise the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald memorials.