Nazi concentration camps

From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (German: Konzentrationslager[lower-alpha 1]), including subcamps[lower-alpha 2] on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe.

Nazi concentration camps
Prisoners hauling earth for the construction of the "Russian camp" at Mauthausen
Main camps
Arbeitsdorf Auschwitz Bergen-Belsen Buchenwald Dachau Flossenbürg Gross-Rosen Herzogenbusch Hinzert Kaiserwald Kauen Kraków-Płaszów Majdanek Mauthausen–Gusen Mittelbau-Dora Natzweiler-Struthof Neuengamme Niederhagen Ravensbrück Sachsenhausen Stutthof Vaivara Warsaw
Organization Agencies Concentration Camps Inspectorate SS Main Economic and Administrative Office German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe SS-Totenkopfverbände (Camp SS) Subdivisions Appellplatz Sanitätswesen Subcamp SS-Baubrigaden Camp brothels Politische Abteilung Revier Strafkompanie
Topics
Action 14f13 Extermination through labor Identification of inmates Badges Language Disciplinary and Penal Code Death marches Postenpflicht
Personnel
Commandant Lagerführer Schutzhaftlagerführer Female guards Wehrmacht Luftwaffe guards
Prisoners Classification Prisoner functionary Kapo "Asocials" Criminals Homosexuals Jehovah's Witnesses Jews Political prisoners Nacht und Nebel Sonder- und Ehrenhaft "Race defilers" Soviet prisoners of war Nationalities Czechs French Germans Poles Russians Yugoslavs

Dachau

Mauthausen

Ravensbrück

Flossenbürg

Sachsenhausen

Buchenwald

Neuengamme

Auschwitz

Majdanek

Kraków-Płaszów

Natzweiler-Struthof

Stutthof

Bergen-Belsen

Gross-Rosen

Mittelbau

Warsaw

Hinzert

All of the main camps except Arbeitsdorf, Herzogenbusch, Niederhagen, Kauen, Kaiserwald, and Vaivara (1937 borders). Color-coded by date of establishment as a main camp: blue for 1933–1937, gray for 1938–1939, red for 1940–1941, green for 1942, yellow for 1943–1944.

The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment.[lower-alpha 3] Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least a third of the 700,000 prisoners who were registered as of January 1945. Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches.

Museums commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime have been established at many of the former camps and the Nazi concentration camp system has become a universal symbol of violence and terror.