Antisemitism & The Beginning of Concentration Camps
In the novel “The Book Thief”, set in nazi Germany the many character Liesel Meminger was hiding a jew. At that time it was a grave crime to harboring a jew and Liesel and her whole family could have been harshly punished. Max Vandenburg was their jew and he couldn't handle with the guilt of letting Leisel’s family get caught. So he left the safety of their house but was caught and was taken to the concentration camp, Dachau.
Most people know of the concentration camps that were build in world war two for Hitler’s “Final Solution” but you may not know how the Germans came to this conclusion. On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany, a concentration camp for criminals and political prisoners was set up in Dachau.
The Start of Antisemitism
During Hitler’s imprisonment in May 1924 he wrote Mein Kempf or “my struggle” an autobiography where he states his world views and political ideologies. In Mein Kempf Hilter’s main thesis center around “the jewish peril” a conspiracy theory where he states that all jews are trying to gain world dominance. When he was young, Hitler says he was liberal and tolerant but became increasingly militaristic and anti-semitic which was crucial for his reconstruction of Germany.
After gaining full power in August 1934 he began his reconstruction with the Nuremberg laws which made anti-semitism a form of scientific racism. There was then an explosion of German legislation directed at Jews and other groups. An example of results of the legislation is the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” which prevented non-aryans from any civil service.
The First Concentration Camp
As mentioned earlier on Dachau was the very first concentration camp set up in Germany by Heinrich Himmler in 1933. Its original purpose was to have the prisoners do forced labour. Its original inhabitants were mostly political adversaries of Hitler or people who spoke out against him, but it also housed criminals from all over Germany. Eventually the camp would house jews and other ethnic groups, not just from inside Germany but also from all the lands it would later invade.
The purpose of the concentration camps was not to kill the inmates but just to get rid of people that the society deemed undesirable. However many of the inmates ended up dying due to the terrible living/work conditions. It was in the spring of 1941 that the purpose of the camps was changed entirely when the SS along with doctors and officials introduced the “T-4 Euthanasia Program” which was essentially the systemic extermination of approximately six million jewish people.
The guards who occupied not just Dachau but also all other concentration camps were the German Schutzstaffel or SS for short; a paramilitary organization that was responsible for many of Hitler’s crimes against humanity throughout world war two. Dachau was a important location for the Schutzstaffel because many of them were trained there before being sent to other camps around Europe.
From Dachau’s beginning to end, the camp stood for 12 years and held approximately 200,000 people from all over Europe. There are only 32,000 documented deaths at Dachau but its expected that just over 41,000 were murdered at this location, a relatively small number taking into account some of the later camps that were built.