Munich: Dachau - Part C - more info

When you think 'prison camp' you assume that being in the camp is already a prison - but would you expect a prison inside a prison?

I didn't.

I still don't know if I completely understand the entire purpose. Realistically it was just some sick perverted game for the Nazis to play. I guess they needed to keep those people separated from the other prisoners so that they wouldn't get 'ideas' because that could have lead to a possible revolution. But realistically they weren't doing anything in prison to contribute to the efficiency system of the german government so I don't quite understand. I guess because they thought that these people could be of some help to them, possibly by the information they could have possessed.

I guess one thing that I didn't realize was that Dachau was initially opened in 1933 - the year hitler came into power. This was originally a place solely for political enemies. Some prisoners, those that didn't stand out, actually lasted the entire 12 years at Dachau.

The whole of Dachau was the first prison camp and was known as the school of terror. There is a japanese architect that designed a house that was supposed to help people lose weight because they would constantly be shifting and never able to really sit still, hence burning more calories. This seems to be the same basis for the Dachau school of thought. Just doing these small little things that degraded people, and bring their spirits down little by little. Nothing super obvious, just like you don't notice when you have one thing out of place. When first opened and there were less people at the camp, one of the things prisoners would have to do was build these tiny little walls by carrying bricks from one side of the camp to the other. Once the wall was finished it would be kicked down and they would have to build the wall on the other side of the yard. All little meaningless activities.

Dachau was known for being so 'good' at what they did that they were the training school for all major prison camps. In fact, the director at Auschwitz was hired for that position solely because of his Dachau training.

This place where they used to train prison guards is now used as a training centre for the Bavarian Riot police. Our tour guide said that one day he was taking people around to the gas chambers some of the tear gas used for training had enveloped that area. While we were there we just heard yelling.

Another thing I want to stress was that the camp was not just a place for jews - as mentioned before Dachau started as a place for political enemies and as hitler gained more power, the definition for enemies of the state was expanded so that racial discrimination became a larger part of everything.