The document summarizes the opening of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1933. It was the first camp to be called a "concentration camp" and opened on March 22, 1933 in a former World War 1 gunpowder factory. The SS, rather than the SA (stormtroopers), provided guards. The camp held around 200 Communist prisoners initially and set standards for harsh treatment that were later used in other Nazi camps under the leadership of Theodore Eicke.

2. Opening of Dachau
• Opened March 22, 1933
• Former WW1 gunpowder factory
• First camp to be called a concentration camp
• First to use SS soldiers as guards
• Other camps used SA soldiers (storm troopers) as guards

3. Burning of Reichstag
• Feb 27 1933
• Congressional building in Berlin
• Hermann Goering accused the communists of starting the fire

4. • President Paul von Hindenburg suspended certain civil rights
• 2,000 leading Communists throughout Germany were imprisoned
without formal charges being brought against them and without a
trial.
• Abandoned buildings or “wild” camps
• old brewery in Oranienburg; this camp was rebuilt in 1936 as the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
• WWI gunpowder factory becomes Dachau
• SS leader Heinrich Himmler became Police President of Munich
• decided to construct a new SS run concentration camp at an
unused munitions factory, Dachau

5. • First Prisoners- March 22, 1933
• 200 Communists
• Nazis win seats in Congressional election after Reichstag
• Confirmed Hitler as new Chancellor
• Theodore Eicke, second Commandant of Dachau
• in June 1933, "father of the Nazi concentration camp system"
rules and regulations for the Dachau camp.
• prisoners were subjected to harsh military style drills, random
beatings and sometimes torture
• Storm troops hold prisoners for ransom
• Arbeit Macht Frei, meaning works sets you free or work liberates.

6. • Eicke strict with guards
• Berated and punished
for small infractions
• Fraternized with men
• “Papa Eicke”.
• Himmler named him
inspector of
concentration camps in
1934

7. Life for Prisoners
"There is one way to freedom. Its milestones are:
obedience, zeal, honesty, order, cleanliness, temperance, truth, se
nse of sacrifice and love for the Fatherland.”
• Long wooden huts with 270
inmates
• 5 rooms, 2 rows of bunks stacked
3 high
• No adequate sanitary facilities-
12 toilets for 270 men
• Life was regulated
• Salute guards
• Alignments of sheets

10. Theodore Eicke
• "There behind the barbed wire lurks the enemy and he
watches everything you do. He will try to help himself by using
all your weaknesses. Don't leave yourself open in any way.
Show these enemies of the state your teeth. Anyone who
shows even the smallest sign of compassion for the enemies
of the state must disappear from our ranks. I can only use
hard men who are determined to do anything. We have no
use for weaklings."