Buchenwald was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees.
Karl-Otto Koch was a mid-ranking commander in the Schutzstaffel (SS) of Nazi Germany who was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. From September 1941 until August 1942, he served as the first commandant of the Majdanek concentration camp in occupied Poland, stealing vast amounts of valuables and money from murdered Jews. His wife, Ilse Koch, also took part in the crimes at Buchenwald.
Friedrich Hartjenstein was a German SS functionary and war criminal. A member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, he served at various Nazi concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. After the Second World War, he was tried and found guilty of murder and crimes against humanity.
Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, approximately 5,000 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a shortage of male guards. In the context of these camps, the German position title of Aufseherin translates to (female) "overseer" or "attendant". Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen, Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.
Richard Baer was a German SS officer who, among other assignments, was the commandant of Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commandant of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution but was recognized and arrested in December 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.
Niederhagen was a Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Büren-Wewelsburg which existed from 1941 to 1943 when it was disbanded.
The Esterwegen concentration camp near Esterwegen was an early Nazi concentration camp within a series of camps first established in the Emsland district of Germany. It was established in the summer of 1933 as a concentration camp for 2000 so-called political Schutzhäftlinge and was for a time the second largest concentration camp after Dachau. The camp was closed in summer of 1936. Thereafter, until 1945 it was used as a prison camp. Political prisoners and so-called Nacht und Nebel prisoners were also held there. After the war ended, Esterwegen served as a British internment camp, as a prison, and, until 2000, as a depot for the German Army.
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI) or in German, IKL was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten", after Eicke's position in the SS. It was later integrated into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D".
Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich was a punitive campaign targetting individuals deemed as "work-shy" or "asocial." In April and June 1938, as part of the "Arbeitsscheu Reich"(work-shy Reich), more than 10,000 men were arrested as so-called "black triangle anti-social elements" and sent to concentration camps. During the so-called June-action, about 2,500 Jews who had received previous convictions for varied reasons were also targeted.
Subcamps, officially Arbeitslager der Waffen-SS, were outlying detention centres (Haftstätten) that came under the command of a main concentration camps run by the SS in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. The Nazis distinguished between the main camps and the subcamps subordinated to them. Survival conditions in the subcamps were, in many cases, poorer for the prisoners than those in the main camps.
Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and commandant of Dachau concentration camp. Following the war, he was convicted and executed.
Albert Sauer was a Nazi German commandant of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. He died of wounds in 1945, and was never tried for his role in The Holocaust.
Aktion Gitter was a "mass arrest action" by the Gestapo which took place in Nazi Germany between 22 and 23 August 1944. It came just over a month after the failed attempt to assassinate the country's leader, Adolf Hitler, on 20 July 1944. The programme targeted former officials and members of mainstream centre and left-wing "Bourgeois" parties from the period of democratic government that were declared illegal after January 1933. Those arrested included Social Democrats and trades unionists, Liberals, Communists and Bavarian People's Party members, along with members of the old centre parties.
Vulkanwerft concentration camp in the Bredow district of Szczecin, also known as the KZ Stettin-Bredow, was one of the early so-called "wild" German Nazi concentration camps set up by the SA, in October 1933. The camp existed only until 11 March 1934, before prisoner transfer, and in spite of its short history, had as many as three commandants including SS-Truppführer Otto Meier, SS-Truppführer Karl Salis, and SS-Truppführer Fritz Pleines. The camp was notorious for the brutality of its guards. The prisoners were kept in the basement of the shipyard buildings.
Alfred Kästner was a German communist and resistance fighter against Nazism.
Approximately 30,000 Jews in Germany and Austria were deported within the region or the country after the Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938. They were deported to the concentration camps Buchenwald, Dachau and Sachsenhausen by the NSDAP organizations and the police in the days after the pogrom. This put pressure on the deportees and their relatives in order to speed up the only seemingly voluntary emigration from their homeland and to "Aryanize" Jewish assets. The vast majority of the detainees were released by the beginning of 1939. Around 500 Jews were murdered, committed suicide or died as a result of ill-treatment and refused medical treatment in the concentration camps.
Bruno Brodniewicz born 22 July 1895 in Posen, was a German prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Brodniewicz was the first Lagerälteste, carrying prisoner tag number 1. He died in April 15–16, 1945 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Albert Kuntz was a German goldsmith, soldier, communist and concentration camp victim. A soldier in the First World War, Kuntz rose to become an elected representative of the German Communist Party in Berlin's Prussian Landtag. In 1933 he was arrested by the Gestapo, and sent to a succession of prisons and concentration camps. He died in January 1945 at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, where he had been organizing the sabotage of the V-2 rocket production line. Following his death, he was revered as an anti-fascist hero in East Germany.
Kirsten John-Stucke is a German historian, non-fiction author, and museum director of the Wewelsburg Museum. She is the editor of numerous documentations on the history of Wewelsburg during the National Socialist era and on the history of the Niederhagen concentration camp. The focus of her work lies in commemorative culture, educational memorial work, and in the re-conception of the Wewelsburg Memorial and Museum from 1933 to 1945.
