Places of Camps on the Reich.

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by Passchendaele_Baby, May 6, 2009.

  1. Passchendaele_Baby

    Passchendaele_Baby Grandads Little Girl

    Is it just a coincidence, or is it a larger picture that Hitler built all of the concentration camps in Poland, not Germany.
    Sorry if this is a really basic question, but I noticed it when I was reading my POW book about NZ POW's

    [​IMG]

    Do you think it was a smart idea to build them not-in-Germany?

    Jess.
     
    Owen likes this.
  2. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Jess,

    There was camps in Germany. Dachau and Belsen to name two.

    Regards
    Andy
     
  3. MLW

    MLW Senior Member

    No, it is not a coincidence. Death Camps were all deliberately placed outside of Germany proper. That was very much a conscious decision. On the other hand, as your map shows, Labor camps were more widespread and located both in and outside Germany.
     
  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Sorry if this is a really basic question,

    Basic questions are usually the best.
    I've another one.
    Why Poland?
     
  5. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Basic questions are usually the best.
    I've another one.
    Why Poland?
    Good question and I've no idea why. I would venture that the dirty work was to carried "out of the house" so to speak.
     
  6. Philip Reinders

    Philip Reinders Very Senior Member

    No connection between Poles/Germans in anyway so not much change a getting info on this to Germany?, and maybe cheap labour from Poles and Russian POWs.
     
  7. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    I would think that the logical reason was as GH said and Hitler and co obviously had little regard for the Poles as he did with the Jews and Russians.

    Could it be as simple as this was the first country invaded and they had to be built somewhere?

    They only arguement I can think of against the theory about not building them in Germany due to 'It not being good enough for Germans' would be -Hitler wanted to resettle Germans in Poland.

    I suspect there will either be a very basic striaght forward reason or someone will know of some complicated reason dreamed up by one of mentalists who thought it was a good idea at the time :)

    Regards
    Andy
     
  8. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I suppose it's quite simple, you don't sh*t in your own back garden do you?
    I assume it's all to do with Lebensraum too.
    Is this true in the wiki article that..

    In 1914, the concept of Lebensraum was endorsed secretly by the German government as a war aim in the First World War. Documents discovered by the German historian Fritz Fischer have established that in the event of a German victory, the policy of the German government was to annex Congress Poland , expel the entire Polish population, both Catholic and Jewish, and in their place settle millions of Germans as a part of a scheme for the German colonization of Eastern Europe. The significance of Fischer's discovery lies in as the Australian hisorian John Moses noted is that the goal of winning lebensraum was already German policy long before 1933, and thus cannot be seen as some German historians have argued as solely Adolf Hitler's personal brain-child





    Lebensraum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  9. Heimbrent

    Heimbrent Well-Known Member

    Fritz Fischer provoked the so-called "Fischer-Kontroverse" (about German war aims). Fact is that the German government had no actual war aims in WW1. However, the idea of "Lebensraum im Osten" is quite old, that is, it appeared even before the war, mostly in völkisch circles... I doubt that it was taken serious enough to be made a political aim until the Nazis seized power...

    *edit*
    Check Bethmann Hollwegs "Septemberprogramm" - he does indeed say something about Russia, however he keeps his statement more than vague. I think the main goal back then was a powerful Germany with colonies etc, like GB.

    There's a very interesting part in a speech Himmler had in 1940:
    [FONT=&quot]Es gibt Menschen, die die Befürchtung haben und sagen, wir hätten gar nicht genügend Menschen, um diesen Ostraum zu besiedeln. Den Glauben habe ich nicht, sondern ich glaube, dass wir genügend haben. Ich glaube, wenn der Führer nach dem Krieg aufrufen wird, auf nach dem Osten! und wird den Leuten die Bedingungen bekanntgeben, dass wir ein Strom nach dem Osten einsetzten, wie er erfreulich in der deutschen Geschichte noch gar nicht da war.
    [/FONT]
    'There are some who say there won't be enough (!) people to settle in the east. I don't believe that, I believe that we have enough. As soon as the Führer will say: To the east! everybody will want to go there.' That, imo, reduces the myth, the German ppl has "no room" to absurdity...
     
  10. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    Heimbrent
    Fritz Fischer provoked the so-called "Fischer-Kontroverse" (about German war aims). Fact is that the German government had no actual war aims in WW1. However, the idea of "Lebensraum im Osten" is quite old, that is, it appeared even before the war, mostly in völkisch circles... I doubt that it was taken serious enough to be made a political aim until the Nazis seized power...
    Very true , there was no movement other than the Nazis which entertained such ideas and notions - the pre 33 goverment was not going to wage a war in the east.

    In re spect of the slide into extermination and genocide / location of the camps.

    Ian Kershaw pointed out that the camp system in German was not a secret it was there to be seen it provided both a propaganda message and was the stick behind the carrot - the camps were presented as a positive step forward - cinema news reels had footage of camp guards shaking hands with released prisoners who had seen "the error of their ways" , camps "kept society safe" was the message which was put forward.

    The side into genocide really took pace when Poland fell and with the invasion of Russia it became policy.
    Heydrich's ez.gruppen were killing hundreds on a daily basis , the camp system existed to contain "anti social elements" made the shift to direct murder in 1942-3 and the likes of Auschwitz developed with the decline of the Reinhard camps to provide both killing and slave labour.
    A very simplified view but basically this is what took place , the myth is the carefully planned , efficent and directed process - it evolved with the political , social and military landscape - pragmatic and radical solutions the sort which appealed to Hitler , Himmler and Heydrich.
    That the camps were located in "the east" as were the ghettos , as Owen says - why do it in your own backyard , that was what Poland was for.
    T4 had created problems and the bulk of the Jewish population* was in the east - why move them west , build the camps in the east and its out of sight , out of mind and can be easily controlled , less questions are asked and answers can be constructed.
    *( The largest minority group targeted for "special treatment").

    Brutal and insane as it sounds today you have to look at it from the Nazi point of view - to them it made sense , it was all reasonable and was for the greater good as they saw it.

    Brownings " The Nazis and the Origin of the Final Solution" does bring these strands together in a quite shocking but very readable form for them it was about securing a German future (as they defined it) and in that future these enemies and sub humans simply did not have a place and for the good of society and on racial grounds they had to go and if that meant genocide so be it .
    Posen defines both mentality and logic , Hitler's orders pre barbarossa ste the standard , "a war of annihilation" , the camp system was merely a means of providing a means for that to be achieved.
    Genocide became a war aim.
     
  11. MyOldDad

    MyOldDad Senior Member

    That the camps were located in "the east" as were the ghettos , as Owen says - why do it in your own backyard , that was what Poland was for.
    T4 had created problems and the bulk of the Jewish population* was in the east - why move them west

    I listened to a very interesting program on Radio 4 the other day which explained, among other things, why Poland would have had such a large Jewish population at the outbreak of the war - due in some measure to the fact that while most European countries, including our own, had persecuted and expelled Jews throughout the middle ages and later, Poland had been far more tolerant and offered a relatively safe place for them to settle.

    It is well worth a listen:

    BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Catholics and Jews, From Pogroms to Pius XII

    Tom.
     
  12. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

  13. Passchendaele_Baby

    Passchendaele_Baby Grandads Little Girl

    Seems my question has been answered.
    Seems more logical than what i had originally thought. Maybe the Artsy Nazi was smart after all :lol:
     

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