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Australian Politics
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Part 2 of Nazis Germany and the Death Camps.
Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Immediately, the SA stepped up their campaign of violence and terror against the communists. They did this in order to increase their power and to reduce opposition. Across Germany the local police and SA and SS rounded up many thousands of communists, socialists, church leaders and anyone else who might criticise the Nazis. As prisoners were physically concentrated in one place the Nazis called these first camps concentration camps. Over the next 12 years, as they invaded and occupied lands all over Europe, the Nazis would build over 20,000 camps of various kinds. These included concentration camps, transit camps, forced labour or work camps and death camps. This section will consider the different types of camps, the people that ran them and, more importantly, how these camps affected the millions of people who were prisoners within them. Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Immediately, the SA stepped up their campaign of violence and terror against the communists. They did this in order to increase their power and to reduce opposition. Hermann Goering, a leading Nazi, was appointed head of the police in Bavaria. He recruited 50,000 SA and SS members into the police in order to step up the campaign against the Nazis’ enemies. Across Germany the local police and SA and SS rounded up many thousands of communists, socialists, church leaders and anyone else who might criticise the Nazis. These prisoners were held in local prisons and police stations. There were so many prisoners that makeshift buildings were converted to house them. This system did not work – it was inefficient and not centrally run. The Nazis needed a new solution. They realised that they would have to establish large, purpose-built camps in order to hold these prisoners. As prisoners were physically concentrated in one place, the Nazis called these first camps 'concentration camps'. Over the next 12 years, as they invaded and occupied lands all over Europe, the Nazis would build over 20,000 camps of various kinds. These included concentration camps, transit camps, forced labour or work camps and death camps. “In completion of the task which was entrusted to you… …[on] January 24, 1939, of solving the Jewish question… …in the most convenient way possible… …I [now] charge you with making all necessary preparations… …for an overall solution of the Jewish question… I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan… …for the execution of the intended final solution of the Jewish question.” On 31 July 1941, Hermann Goering orders Reinhard Heydrich to prepare a plan for the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. During the summer of 1941, in breach of Hitler’s agreement with Joseph Stalin, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following the German army into battle were the Einsatzgruppen. Local people supported these killing squads, one of the main tasks of which was to kill all Jewish men, women and children in the areas that were being conquered. By December 1941, over 500,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered. However, for the Nazis leadership, conventional killing methods were insufficient and inefficient. On 20 January 1942, 15 leading officials of the Nazi state met at a villa in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, to discuss the ’Final solution of the Jewish Question’. The ’Final solution’ was a code name for the murder of all the Jews of Europe. The people present at the conference were to discuss how to make mass murder happen in an organised and methodical way.
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