Before the battle with the internal enemy. Training and preparation of SS men for service in concentration and extermination camps on the example of KL Auschwitz

Abstract

War or battle does not always mean confronting an external enemy. To reach this stage, the Third Reich had to deal first with its internal enemies – political opponents of the National Socialists, Jews, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s witnesses. The aim of this work was to present the training process of SS men, whose main task was to supervise persons imprisoned in concentration and extermination camps. The focus was on the role of the National Socialist ideology and its influence on the attitude of the guards and the values that were instilled in them during training and service in camps. The main subject of research were SS men from the garrison of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex. In the documents preserved in the Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, it has been shown that the local guards were also subjected to the indoctrination initiated in KL Dachau by Theodor Eicke. The first part of the paper presents the assumptions of the National Socialist ideology, which were promoted with particular emphasis in the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and specific values characteristic of the SS itself. Then, the elements of military training that candidates for SS men underwent were characterized, and which significantly influenced their attitude towards prisoners in concentration camps. The main part of the work was devoted to documents testifying to the ideological training of SS men and the content that was conveyed therein, as well as the role of Division VI in perpetuating the National Socialist views among the KL Auschwitz staff.