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SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (german: SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; SS-WVHA) was a Nazi organization responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects of the (a main branch of the ; SS). It also ran the concentration camps and was instrumental in the implementation of the Final Solution through such subsidiary offices as the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS camp guards. Economics of the Holocaust In June 1939 SS-''Obergruppenführer'' Oswald Pohl became chief of both the ''Verwaltung und Wirtschaft Hauptamt'' (VuWHA) and the ''Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten'' ("main bureau or/nowiki> budget and construction", part of the ''Reich'''s Ministry of the Interior). He oversaw all SS "construction projects and building enterprises" through these offices. Pohl also worked with Walther Funk, Reich Minister of Economics (german: Reichswirtschaftsminister), to oversee financial aspects of the Final Solution, the most deadly ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS-Totenkopfverbände
''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS-TV; ) was the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the '' Totenkopf'' was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations. The SS-TV originally created in 1933 was an independent unit within the SS, with its own command structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany and later in occupied Europe. Camps in Germany included Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and Buchenwald; camps elsewhere in Europe included Auschwitz- Birkenau in German occupied Poland and Mauthausen in Austria among the numerous other concentration camps, and death camps handled with the utmost of secrecy. The extermination camps' function was genocide; they included Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór built specifically for '' Aktion Reinhard'', as well as the original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allgemeine-SS
The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autumn of 1934 to distinguish its members from the ''SS-Verfügungstruppe'' (SS Dispositional Troops or SS-VT), which later became the Waffen-SS, and the ''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS Death's Head Units or SS-TV), which were in charge of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen. Starting in 1939, foreign units of the ''Allgemeine SS'' were raised in occupied countries. From 1940 they were consolidated into the Directorate of the Germanic-SS (''Leitstelle der germanischen SS''). When the war first began, the vast majority of SS members belonged to the ''Allgemeine SS'', but this proportion changed during the later years of the war after the Waffen-SS op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concentration Camps Inspectorate
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI) or in German, IKL (''Inspektion der Konzentrationslager''; ) was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced '' SS-Totenkopfstandarten''", after Eicke's position in the SS. It was later integrated into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D". Inspector of all concentration camps SS-''Oberführer'' Theodor Eicke, became commandant of Dachau concentration camp on 26 June 1933. His form of organization at Dachau stood as the model for all later concentration camps. Eicke claimed the title of "Concentration Camps Inspector" for himself by May 1934. As part of the disempowerment of the SA through murder during the "Night of the Long Knives" he had personally shot Ernst Röhm on 1 July 1934. Shortly after the Röhm affair on 4 July 1934, ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himml ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and '' Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oswald Pohl
Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in the Final Solution, the genocide of the European Jews. After the war, Pohl went into hiding; he was apprehended in 1946. Pohl stood trial in 1947, was convicted of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death. After repeatedly appealing his case, he was executed by hanging in 1951. Early life and career Oswald Pohl was born in Duisburg-Ruhrort on 30 June 1892 to blacksmith, Hermann Otto Emil Pohl, and his wife Auguste Pohl (née Seifert); he was the fifth of eight children. His parents were financially secure, and he attended a ''Realgymnasium'' where he studied classical Greek and Latin texts. From what Pohl claimed, he always wanted to study science but his father did not have the means to send him straight to university. In 191 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Majdanek Concentration Camp
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, placing it among the largest of Nazi concentration camps. Although initially intended for forced labor rather than extermination, the camp was used to murder people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Polish Jews within their own occupied homeland. The camp, which operated from 1 October 1941 to 22 July 1944, was captured nearly intact. The rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration prevented the SS from destroying most of the camp's infrastructure, and Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes failed to remove most incriminating evidence of war crimes. The camp was nicknamed Majdanek ("little Majdan") in 1941 by local residents, as it was adjacen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strafkompanie
Strafkompanie ("Punitive Unit") is the German word for the penal work division in the Nazi concentration camps. ''SK'' was the abbreviation used in the concentration camps for the notorious ''Strafkompanies''. These penal divisions were yet another hardship that could be forced on the already exhausted inmates of the camps. The prisoners of the Strafkompanie were given hard work, e.g., in the quarries, where most "workers" died. In the SK they worked longer hours than other inmates, had shorter breaks, less food, more brutal treatment, and they lived isolated in separate barracks. The ''Strafkompanie'' consisted of all kinds of prisoners: criminals, Jews, Russian soldiers, political prisoners, priests, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, Roma Gypsies. The criteria for the selection to the penal division were arbitrary. See also *Nazi concentration camp badges Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in German camps. They wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles for whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years. In May 1940, German criminals br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service, and did not fight. He studied agriculture in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed by Adolf Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stutthof Concentration Camp
Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig ( Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-annexed Free City of Danzig. The camp was set up around existing structures after the invasion of Poland in World War II and initially used for the imprisonment of Polish leaders and intelligentsia. The actual barracks were built the following year by prisoners. Most of the infrastructure of the concentration camp was either destroyed or dismantled shortly after the war. In 1962, the former concentration camp with its remaining structures, was turned into a memorial museum. Stutthof was the first German concentration camp set up outside German borders in World War II, in operation from 2 September 1939. It was also the last camp liberated by the Allies, on 9 May 1945. It is estimated that between 63,000 and 65,000 prisoners of S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichsbank
The ''Reichsbank'' (; 'Bank of the Reich, Bank of the Realm') was the central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945. History until 1933 The Reichsbank was founded on 1 January 1876, shortly after the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. It was the central bank of Prussia, under the close control of the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend. Before unification in 1871, Germany had 31 central banks – the Notenbanken ("note banks"). Each of the independent states issued their own money. In 1870, a law was passed that forbade the formation of further central banks. In 1874, a draft banking law was introduced in the ''Reichstag'', the federal legislature of the German Reich. After several changes and compromises, the law was passed in 1875. Despite the creation of the Reichsbank, however, four of the ''Notenbanken'' – Baden, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg – continued to exist until 1914 . The Reichsbank experienced bot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
