- Headline
-
Camps Used By Nazis to Convert Foes
- Sub-Headline
- 18,000 Germans, Mostly Socialists and Communists, to Be Held in Political Camps Until They Become 'Fit Citizens'—Routine Strict
- Publication Date
- Monday, April 24, 1933
- Historical Event
-
Dachau Opens
This database includes 466 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Page Section and Number
- 8
- Author/Byline
- AP
- Article Text
- Berlin—(AP)—Some 18,000 Germans from all walks of life are being held in the political concentration camps in various parts of the country.
Wilhelm Frick, Prussian minister of the interior, explains that they will be kept there until they become "fit citizens," reconciled if not converted, to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler.
Most of the 18,000 are Socialists or Communists. Of all ages or classes they are kept on a strict routine of exercise and work.
Quarters very from an ancient castle, like Hohnstein, in Saxony, which was a shelter for youthful hikers before it was converted to its present use, to rough barracks surrounded by barbed wire entanglements.
Sanitary conditions generally are described as excellent. There are doctors at each camp to care for the health of the inmates, and some of them report that the political prisoners are adepts [sic] at getting on morning "sick call."
"Most of them simulate sickness because they think they'll get hospital leave," was the way the newspaper Taeglische Rundschau quoted the camp physician at Oranienburg, near Berlin.
Plenty of Exercise Daily
At Oranienburg there are 15 1/2 hours routine daily. The schedule calls for hours of military training, like scaling barricades and drill in columns and company front formation, an hour and a half of physical culture and five hours of manual labor.
The physical culture includes morning setting-up exercises, football matches and similar group games. The manual labor is mostly tidying up the camp premises and barracks, but there are odd Jobs too, such as sewing or painting swastika emblems on confiscated Communist flags.
At most of the camps privileges are few. Major Kauffman, head of the big Heuberg camp in Wuerttemberg, said his prisoners were allowed to write one letter a month. There are no visiting days there.
Guards Are Adamant
"Sometimes half the population of the village tries to get in to see the prisoners," the major told a German newspaper writer. "There are false and genuine fiancees, young fellows with faked passes, women in peasant garb and women in silks.
"All are turned away, whereupon there is much wailing and complaining. But orders are orders."
Taeglische Rundschau sees political ideas of tomorrow coming from the concentration camps of today. Quoting a prisoner as saying "Sure we'd like to get out; but this is a good enough place to think things over," the paper comments:
Feel Like Martyrs
"Many of the prisoners are only now aware of their political importance. They feel like martyrs and are experiencing the start within themselves of what becomes 'the great idea.' "
Besides Oranienburg, the principal camps are at Heuberg, which has 1,750 inmates; Breslau, Sonnenburg, in Thuringia; and Dachau in Bavaria.
The Communist "elite,'' including Ernst Thaelmann, former presidential candidate, Karl von Ossietzki, writer, and several attorneys, have been transferred from jail in Berlin to the Sonnenburg cramp. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Heather B.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: Dachau Opens
- Dachau (Encyclopedia Article)
- Nazi Camps (Encyclopedia Article)
Bibliography
Berben, Paul. Dachau, 1933-1945: The Official History. London: Norfolk Press, 1975.
International Dachau Committee. The Dachau Concentration Camp, 1933 to 1945: Text and Photo Documents from the Exhibition. Dachau: Comite´ International de Dachau, 2005.
Marcuse, Harold. Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Neurath, Paul. The Society of Terror: Inside the Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005.
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