Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen

On 21 March 1933, the “Day of Potsdam”, on which Germany’s conservative elites bestowed their seal of approval on Hitler, the first state concentration camp in Prussia was set up by the local SA regiment, Standard 208, in a disused brewery towards the centre of the town of Oranienburg. The early concentration camps in Germany were mainly local “revenge camps”, in which the National Socialists incarcerated their political and intellectual opponents from the street fighting and verbal mudslinging in the Weimar Republic, as a deterrent. It was not unusual for the victims and perpetrators to come from the same milieu; they might even be neighbours, or members of the same family.

Between March 1933 and the closure of the camp in July 1934, a total of around three thousand people were interned in Oranienburg concentration camp. Most of these were political opponents from Berlin, Oranienburg and the surrounding area. Among the internees there were also members of the Reichstag, the German parliament, and of the Prussian regional parliament, senior employees of Berlin Radio and many intellectuals. They were almost exclusively Communists to begin with, but were joined by a small number of Social Democrats as well from June-July 1933 on.