In March 1933, the Nazis opened the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. The Oranienburg concentration camp to the north of Berlin followed shortly afterwards. In Emsland, near the Dutch border, camps Esterwegen and Borgermoor were added. In these camps, the prisoners had to do labour digging up the peat.
The construction of Dachau: The first concentration camp
March 22, 1933 Dachau
The camps were intended for the thousands of people arrested by the Nazis after Hitler had come to power. The prisons were overcrowded. In the month of April alone, tens of thousands of people were arrested. Many of them were held without being charged. The Nazis called it ‘Schutzhaft’ (preventive detention).
The concentration camps were also intended as warnings. They illustrated what happened to the people who resisted the government. Before long, stories and rumours about the abuse in the camps were spreading.
People were ill-treated, tortured, and sometimes even murdered. Jewish prisoners and well-known opponents of the Nazi regime in particular were having a hard time of it.