The Nazi regime sought total social and racial standardization. As this 1937 propaganda publication shows, the state discrimination against racially, socially, politically, and medically "inferior" individuals and groups was presented as necessary to protect the German people. The right side of the page features the dangerous "vermin": residents of a psychiatric facility; the left side of the page shows the solution: concentration camps.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
The annexation of Austria was accompanied by the rapid "coordination" [Gleichschaltung] of the government, economy, and society along National Socialist lines. For political and racial "enemies of the people," this meant subjection to brutal violence and a wave of discriminatory and repressive legislation. The cruelest repression was experienced by Austria's approximately 200,000 Jews, 170,000 of whom lived in Vienna and were now exposed to the Nazis' unlimited hatred. Street violence and arbitrary humiliations assumed proportions never before seen in the German Reich. Tens of thousands of Jews fled abroad. Others were deported to the borders and abandoned there. The Jews who remained in the new Eastern March [Ostmark] quickly fell victim to the anti-Semitic laws that had been in effect in the German Reich since 1933. They were deprived of their political and civil rights, forced out of their professions, and lost their firms and shops in the process of "Aryanization."
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
In addition to Nazi party members, SA stormtroopers, the SS, and the Hitler Youth, the National Socialist Motor Corps [Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrerkorps or NSKK] also participated in riots during the Night of Broken Glass [Kristallnacht]. On the night of November 9, Sebastian Platzer, head of the NSKK driver training school in Regensburg, was ordered by his superior, Wilhelm Müller-Seyfferth, to set fire to the local synagogue together with the NSKK men under his command. In characteristic fashion, the NSKK, the SA, and the SS fought over who would get to carry out the arson attack. Arrests of Jewish families began directly thereafter, and the next morning – under the supervision of Müller-Seyfferth – the SA and the NSKK forced the Jewish men to do degrading drills. Finally, all of the Jewish men in Regensburg were led to the train station on a “march of shame” [Schandmarsch] under a poster that read “Exodus of Jews” [Auszug der Juden]. Some were deported to the Dachau concentration camp; others were taken to the Regensburg prison. A total of 224 Jewish men from the entire administrative district of Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate were sent to Dachau. The Nazis’ use of the phrase “Exodus of Jews” was particularly cynical since it alluded to the exodus of Jews from Egypt, a central liberation theme in Jewish tradition. This phrase was used in later waves of persecution and killings.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
In 1935-36, individual commanders of various concentration camps began forcing newly admitted groups of prisoners to wear badges indicating the alleged grounds for their incarceration. Starting in the winter of 1937-38, these classification symbols were standardized for all camps. Additionally, colors were introduced to differentiate different prisoner groups: red for political prisoners, green for criminals, blue for emigrants, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, pink for homosexuals, and black for “asocials” [Asoziale] or “work shirkers” [Arbeitsscheue]. Inmates wore triangles of fabric in the assigned color on their prison uniforms (left side of the shirt, right pant leg) along with their number and any required additional markings (e.g., potential escapee). Jewish prisoners also wore a yellow triangle that formed a Star of David when placed over the other badge (see below). The origin of non-German prisoners was indicated by the first letter of the German name of their native country (e.g., “P” for Polen [Poland] or “T” for Tschechoslowakei [Czechoslovakia], as shown in the photo,). The cynical social Darwinist classification and hierarchical ranking of the prisoners by the SS intensified the competition among prisoners in the daily struggle for survival.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
The “Third Proclamation on Compulsory Identification Cards” [3. Bekanntmachung über den Kennkartenzwang] was issued on July 23, 1938. According to this new regulation, Jews were obliged to apply for an identification card before the end of the year. Starting on January 1, 1939, they were to present this card, without being asked, whenever they visited government offices or had dealings with authorities. In August 1938, the Reich Ministry of the Interior issued a list of officially approved "Jewish" forenames. According to the “Second Decree on the Execution of the Law regarding the Changing of Surnames and Forenames” [Zweite Verordnung zur Durchführung des Gesetzes über die Änderung von Familiennamen und Vornamen] of August 17, 1938, Jews whose names failed to appear on the government-approved list had to adopt either "Israel" or "Sara" as additional forenames. This decree also took effect on January 1, 1939. Below is a reproduction of the inside pages of a compulsory identification card for Jews.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
Most of the 1.5 million German soldiers who participated in the attack on Poland had been socialized in the Nazi state and had also undergone ideological indoctrination in the party’s mass organizations. In late 1939, 31 percent of the solders in an average German infantry division were members of a Nazi organization. One-fifth were former Hitler Youth members, between one-third and one-half had served in the Reich Labor Service [Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD], and all had done at least one year of military training. Members of the SS and the police, most of whom had an affinity for Nazi doctrine anyway, underwent special ideological training. Propaganda and indoctrination were used to strengthen and radicalize the already widespread resentment of Poles and Jews in German society.
After the German invasion of Poland, aggressive anti-Semitism found release in “lightning pogroms” [Blitzpogrome], during which so-called Eastern Jews [Ostjuden], in particular, were humiliated, abused, and also murdered. In addition to subjecting these Jews to drills and forced labor, the regime’s henchmen often mocked them by cutting or burning off their beards – a practice that was later continued during the military campaign against the Soviet Union.
The photograph shows a member of the Security Service [Sicherheitsdienst or SD] cutting a Polish Jew’s beard. It comes from a series of photos of a staged raid by the Security Police in Warsaw. Photo: Arthur Grimm.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
The "Police Order on the Identification of Jews" of September 1, 1941, required Jews in the German Reich and in the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to wear a yellow star on their clothing. The order took effect on September 19 of that year. The Nazi leadership had considered these measures for years, but Hitler had hesitated to introduce the so-called Jewish star out of concern for international criticism. On the other hand, Polish Jews in German-occupied areas had already been forced to wear such identifying insignia since 1939. The photograph below was taken in Munich. Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
As early as 1938/39, special police formations euphemistically referred to as Special Operations Units [Einsatzgruppen] followed invading German troops into Austria, the Sudetenland, and (rump) Czechoslovakia. The precise nature and mission of these units became clear during the invasion of Poland in 1939: they were mobile killing squads tasked with liquidating alleged political and “racial” opponents of the Nazi regime. Whereas the brutal actions of mobile killing squads in Poland provoked isolated protest from Wehrmacht officers, the Wehrmacht and the squads worked together during Operation Barbarossaa (i.e. the invasion of the Soviet Union) in 1941. This cooperation was regulated by directives made in consultation with SS leaders (Himmler and Heydrich) and orders issued by the High Commands of the Wehrmacht and the Army. The four mobile killing squads deployed by the Security Police [Sicherheitspolizei] and the Security Service [Sicherheitsdienst or SD] – Squads “A,” “B,” “C” and “D” – were supplemented by units from the Order Police [Ordnungspolizei] and the Waffen-SS. They were assigned not only to Germany’s three army groups, North (A), Center (B) and South (C), but also to the 11th Army (D). These mobile killing squads murdered Jews, Communists, prisoners of war (political commissars), Roma and Sinti, as well as the mentally ill, primarily in mass shootings, but later also in gas vans.
Between June 22, 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and late 1941, at least 500,000 Jews were killed by mobile killing squads.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
Abuse and humiliation was part of everyday life for the Jewish inhabitants of Lodz and other ghettos and camps. Tens of thousands of ghetto residents suffered violence, illness, and malnourishment. In the Lodz ghetto alone, an estimated 6,000 Jews died in 1940; 11,000 died in 1941, and 18,000 died in 1942.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
The war of annihilation carried out in the conquered territories of the East by mobile killing squads euphemistically referred to as Special Operations Units [Einsatzgruppen], the Order Police [Ordnungspolizei], and the Wehrmacht received the support of some segments of the local population. Collaborators helped round up the Jews, revealed their hiding places, participated in mass executions, and guarded ghettos and camps. The photograph shows a mass shooting of Lithuanian Jews by members of the Wehrmacht and Lithuanian collaborators in 1942.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
After the Germans occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, the newly installed collaborationist regime demanded that the country's Jews be rounded up and handed over. In mid-May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, working in close collaboration with Adolf Eichmann and the German Security Police [Sicherheitspolizei] began systematic deportations. Over the next two months, approximately 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported. Most were sent to Auschwitz, where the majority were killed shortly after their arrival.
This photograph shows a group of women and children from Subcarpathian Rus, which became part of Hungary after the signing of the Munich Agreement. Having been deemed “unfit for work,” they wait in a clearing near a grove of trees before being led to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
The photograph comes from the "Auschwitz Album," a collection of 193 photographs documenting the arrival and selection of one or more transports of Hungarian Jews in May/June 1944. The photographs were taken by SS Hauptscharführer Bernhardt Walter and his assistant, Unterscharführer Ernst Hofmann. (The two worked as photographers for the camp’s Identification Service [Erkennungsdienst] and were responsible for photographing and fingerprinting the prisoners who were selected for work.) Members of the SS put Walter and Hofmann's photos of the Hungarian Jews into an album that bore the innocuous sounding title "Resettlement of the Jews of Hungary."
Eighteen-year-old Lili Jacob (1926-1999) and her family were among those Hungarian Jews from Subcarpathian Rus who were deported to Auschwitz. From there, Jacob was sent to the Dora-Mittelbau camp, where she worked as a forced laborer until her liberation in April 1945. It was there that she found the album in an abandoned SS barracks. She recognized herself and various family members (e.g., two of her brothers and her grandparents) in certain photographs. She was eventually called as a witness in the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963-65), where she presented the album to the court. In 1980, Lili Jacob donated the "Auschwitz Album" to Yad Vashem.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
The poison gas Zyklon B, now the symbol of industrial mass murder, was used mainly in the gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It had been tested on Russian prisoners of war in the main camp as early as September 1941. In the Kulmhof, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek camps, victims were killed chiefly by motor exhaust fumes, but they also died in mass shootings and from carbon monoxide poisoning.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
Following Himmler’s orders to obliterate all traces of mass killings, the SS began dismantling the gas chambers in Auschwitz and tearing down its crematoria in late October and early November 1944 (the last crematorium was detonated just before liberation). As the Red Army approached in mid-January 1945, the SS began evacuating the complex, sending around 58,000 prisoners on death marches to the west. Units of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front liberated the concentration camp on January 27, 1945. When entering Auschwitz II (Birkenau), Soviet troops discovered the corpses of 600 prisoners who had been murdered just a few hours earlier. A total of 7,650 prisoners survived. In July 1947, the Polish parliament declared Auschwitz a national monument, and in 1996 Germany made January 27th (the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz) the country’s official Holocaust memorial day.
The photograph, taken after Red Army units liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp, shows female inmates in their barracks.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
Starting on April 6-7, 1945, the SS sent approximately 28,000 prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp on death marches to the west. According to estimates, around 12,000 to 15,000 died. After SS guards abandoned the camp on April 11, fleeing from approaching U.S. forces, armed members of the prisoners’ resistance group took control. That same day, units of the U.S. Third Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton reached the compound, where they found around 21,000 weakened and starving survivors, including 1,000 children and young adults. Deeply affected by his visit to the camp, Patton ordered, as a kind of “re-education” measure, 1,000 residents of the nearby city of Weimar to visit the camp and see for themselves the horrors that had taken place there. At a ceremony commemorating the dead on April 19, 1945, camp survivors took the “Buchenwald Oath,” pledging: “We will not stop fighting until the last perpetrator is brought before the judges of the people! Destroying Nazism and its roots is our slogan. Building a new world of peace and freedom is our goal.”
After the Soviet military authorities were handed control of the camp, they set up “Special Camp No. 2.” By their own account, the Soviets imprisoned more than 28,400 people in this facility between August 1945 and February 1950, including representatives of the Nazi state and the Nazi party, members of the Hitler Youth, the Waffen-SS, and the police, as well as Wehrmacht soldiers. Around 7,100 inmates died. In 1958, Buchenwald was declared the first anti-fascist national memorial site in the German Democratic Republic.
From German History in Documents, viewed on 9/27/17
Prisoners’ possessions were confiscated immediately upon their arrival. Together with everything victims left behind, prisoners’ personal items were appropriated and used by the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office.
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