Opening of Dachau

• Opened March 22, 1933

• Former WW1 gunpowder factory

• First camp to be called a concentration camp

• First to use SS soldiers as guards

• Other camps used SA soldiers (storm troopers) as guards

Burning of Reichstag

• Feb 27 1933• Congressional building in Berlin

• Hermann Goering accused the communists of starting the fire

• President Paul von Hindenburg suspended certain civil rights

• 2,000 leading Communists throughout Germany were imprisoned without formal charges being brought against them and without a trial.

• Abandoned buildings or “wild” camps

• old brewery in Oranienburg; this camp was rebuilt in 1936 as the Sachsenhausen concentration camp

• WWI gunpowder factory becomes Dachau

• SS leader Heinrich Himmler became Police President of Munich

• decided to construct a new SS run concentration camp at an unused munitions factory, Dachau

• First Prisoners- March 22, 1933

• 200 Communists

• Nazis win seats in Congressional election after Reichstag

• Confirmed Hitler as new Chancellor

• Theodore Eicke, second Commandant of Dachau

• in June 1933, "father of the Nazi concentration camp system" rules and regulations for the Dachau camp.

• prisoners were subjected to harsh military style drills, random beatings and sometimes torture

• Storm troops hold prisoners for ransom

• Arbeit Macht Frei, meaning works sets you free or work liberates.

• Eicke strict with guards

• Berated and punished for small infractions

• Fraternized with men

• “Papa Eicke”.

• Himmler named him inspector of concentration camps in 1934

Life for Prisoners

• Long wooden huts with 270 inmates

• 5 rooms, 2 rows of bunks stacked 3 high

• No adequate sanitary facilities-12 toilets for 270 men

• Life was regulated

• Salute guards

• Alignments of sheets

"There is one way to freedom. Its milestones are:

obedience, zeal, honesty, order, cleanliness, temperance, truth, se

nse of sacrifice and love for the Fatherland.”

Theodore Eicke

• "There behind the barbed wire lurks the enemy and he watches everything you do. He will try to help himself by using all your weaknesses. Don't leave yourself open in any way. Show these enemies of the state your teeth. Anyone who shows even the smallest sign of compassion for the enemies of the state must disappear from our ranks. I can only use hard men who are determined to do anything. We have no use for weaklings."