Synopses & Reviews
Weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime established the first concentration camps in Germany. Initially used for real and suspected political enemies, the camps increasingly came under SS control and became sites for the repression of social outsiders and German Jews. Terror was central to the Nazi regime from the beginning, and the camps gradually moved toward the center of repression, torture, and mass murder during World War II and the Holocaust.
This collection brings together revealing primary documents on the crucial origins of the Nazi concentration camp system in the prewar years between 1933 and 1939, which have been overlooked thus far. Many of the documents are unpublished and have been translated into English for the first time. These documents provide insight into the camps from multiple perspectives, including those of prisoners, Nazi officials, and foreign observers, and shed light on the complex relationship between terror, state, and society in the Third Reich.
About the Author
Christian Goeschel teaches modern European history at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is the author of Suicide in Nazi Germany. Nikolaus Wachsmann teaches modern German history at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Hitlers Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany and coeditor of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories.