No history can be found at another crime so heinous and so coldly
calculated as to annihilate millions of human beings in Nazi concentration camps. Hitler was the origin of this mad whirlwind of death. But Hitler was not alone. When they reached the Red Army soldiers, who first came to liberate a Nazi death camp, only three hundred eighty-five hundred and twenty thousand prisoners who had passed through the gates of Stutthof reached the countryside and the freedom to breathe again. There were the survivors of the Nazi horror, wandering dying, almost naked, on the broad plaza from the field while the thermometer was thirty degrees below zero, and finally, there was the crematorium, with its upright chimney still smoking, where the SS had tried to erase all traces of their barbarism, but without success, because eighty-five thousand corpses who wanted to disappear at the time of the liberation of the camp were too many for the capacity of the furnace. In April, after the arrival of American armor. At Buchenwald, near Weimar, General Eisenhower saw with their own eyes how far they were able to get the Nazis in their contempt for human life. The history of the Nazi concentration camps begins shortly after Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on 31 January 1933, its existence represents an attempt to eliminate political opposition. At first, Hitler introduced the "Schutzhaft" (protective custody) as an excuse to lock in the fields unwelcome elements to the system;. In March 1933, due to the commissioning of the first field-Oranienburg and Dachau, Hitler's definition of the role of these establishments: <<The brutality inspires respect. . I do not want the concentration camps to become family pensions. ... The disgruntled and disobedient will think twice before dealing with us, they know what awaits them in concentration camps. Attack our opponents with brutal ferocity and will not hesitate to bend them to the interests of the nation through the concentration camps>>. . Initially, the fields were under the control of the SA (Sturm Abteilung, assault section), shock troops that were eventually canceled after a bloody settling of accounts with the SS during the famous "Night of Knives long ", 30 June 1934. The SA was therefore responsible for establishing the terror through mass murder in the first concentration camps. The commandant of Dachau, Theodor Eicke, scrupulously drafted a regulation which legitimized letter and spirit of these asesinatos.Tras the disappearance of the SA, Hitler assigned to the SS ( "Schutz-Staffeln 'protection squads) control of the fields and Heinrich Himmler was responsible for organizing them. To this end created some detachments for the service of keeping the fields, "Totenkopfverbände (formations of the skull), recruited among the Nazis most fans' first shipments of prisoners arrived at the camps were forced to work under very harsh discipline and in inhuman conditions to build and expand businesses. Those who were unable to stand helplessly died or were executed, but in no case revealed the truth about the deceased. Under the direct supervision of Himmler, the fields are multiplied. After Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück (field for women), Stutthof, Auschwitz, Neuengamme ... These large fields were other smaller annexes called: external Kommandos. Before 1939, the number of prisoners interned in concentration camps was relatively low, especially when taking into account the figures of the war period. However, this situation changed radically after raids conducted Jews by the Nazis during the infamous "Night of Broken Glass" (November 9-10, 1938), and after the annexation of Austria, which meant the delivery of that country at the hands of the Gestapo and the SS. . Hitler had banned the employment of prisoners in the weapons industry, but from September 1942 was essential to increase war production. To this end an agreement was reached whereby the prisoners would work in private industry responsible for supplying the army, in exchange for money and a percentage of production to re-equip the SS. But the inhumane working conditions and poor nutrition were an alarming increase in mortality in the camps. Upon receiving a report which informed him that the hundred and thirty six thousand seven hundred and deportees who had entered the field between June and November 1942 had survived only twenty-three thousand five hundred and two, Himmler was furious. . . As Allied armies advanced, the situation in the camps reached the goals they had set her fatal craftsmen. In the words of psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of Dachau and Buchenwald, through the Gestapo concentration camp "aimed at" Breaking the prisoners as individuals, to spread terror among the rest of the population, giving individuals the Gestapo one training camp where they were taught to dispense with all human emotions and attitudes, providing, finally, to the Gestapo, an experimental laboratory for the study of effective means for breaking the civil resistance. "