My thesis examines the history of Dachau concentration camp from its foundation in 1933 to the outbreak of war in 1939. Dachau was the model for subsequent SS concentration camps and functioned as a training academy for SS personnel. Siting the camp within the regime’s broader apparatus of repression, my thesis brings into focus the character and determinants of the emergent Nazi terror. Central research questions include the camp’s cultural and institutional inheritance and its interaction with both local and German society more broadly, particularly its portrayal by the regime. It examines the background and motivations of the SS personnel trained and deployed there, and analyse what impact this schooling had on their subsequent conduct and the treatment of the various prisoner groups. It also explores the relationship between various prisoner groups and the internal social dynamics of the camp more generally.
"Asocials" and "Criminals" in the Concentration Camps, 1933 and 1939
The fate of so called “asocials” and “criminals” in the Third Reich has only recently received scholarly attention, due to continuing discrimination against these groups after 1945. My thesis examines the role of the pre-war concentration camps within the apparatus of institutional mobilised against “asocials” and “criminals”. A case study of six camps will reveal the conditions under which both groups lived and suffered. My hypothesis is that from Hitler’s first months in power the camps were a means not only of political oppression but also of social-hygienic persecution.
My research investigates German attitudes towards Nazi concentration camps, 1933-1939. It examines the extent of public knowledge of the camps. What did the regime tell the public through its propaganda? What could ordinary people find out for themselves? How did the camps impact upon everyday life in neighbouring communities? To what extent did the population approve of the camps?
ewish Prisoners in Nazi Concentration Camps 1933-1939
Jews were among the first prisoners taken into ‘protective custody’ in Nazi concentration camps. My PhD studies their individual and collective fates. Jewish inmates were arrested for most diverse reasons but forced into one camp-group constituted purely on racial grounds. The arrest of Jews in concentration camps was a key aspect of Nazi anti-Jewish policies prior to the war. My thesis emphasises the crucial interdependence between social discrimination, expulsion and the extra-judicial terror of the camps.
