Political prisoners

In the first large crack-down on mainly political opponents from early 1933 to mid-1934 the nazis sent between 50,000 and 100,000 people to any of the 100 early camps, which were sometimes just improvised detention centers in any old building that was halfway suitable (abandoned factories, etc), sometimes part of an existing regular prison and only in a very few cases a real camp the way we think of them now. The reason these figures are so vague is that many were released rather quickly, sometimes after a day, and that some were rearrested several times. There were several mass amnesties, most notably the Christmas amnesty of 1933. These early roundups were more of a terror tactic.

In August 1934 the camps held 5,000 inmates. Between 1934 and 1936 the SS gradually assumed control over the whole chaotic camp system, closed a bunch of smaller sites and concentrated the inmates in a small number of larger camps, hence "concentration" camp. They expanded the inmate population to include not only political prisoners but also criminals and other “asocial” elements (including homosexuals). They also started using the camps as a source of productive forced labour. The prisoner population rose to about 21,000 just before the war broke out in August 1939. A notable episode of short-term imprisonment in this period was the fact that 30,000 Jews were dragged off to these camps after Reichskristallnacht in November 1938 and subsequently released over the next few months, if they hadn't died in the camps (2,000 did). This was part of a concerted effort to terrorise the Jewish citizens into emigrating (leaving their possessions behind as they were only allowed to take a bare minimum of funds with them).

However, before the start of the war most political prisoners (this could mean anything from active resistance to an unguarded word against the regime) were held in regular prisons. This entailed pretrial detention, a trial, and a sentence, just like in a democratic state, except that the odds were stacked against them. Nevertheless, it also meant that most would be released after serving their sentences. Between 1933 and 1939 about 250,000 people were sentenced to prison terms for political offences. In addition, there was the nebulous category of "protective custody" which could be invoked to keep people in prison without trial. At the outbreak of war about 160,000 people were in prison in "protective custody".

"Ordinary" criminals

The number of people imprisoned for "regular" (non-political) offences more than doubled compared to the pre-nazi era because the nazis were "tough on crime" and there more things that were against the law in the nazi state. The Third Reich was a totalitarian one-party state, therefore every aspect of life, including the justice system, was to be subordinated to the principles of national-socialism.

For instance, judges were exhorted to use their “gesundes Volksempfinden” to determine guilt and set punishment. This is one of those virtually untranslateable Nazispeak expressions that make sense in German but not so much in English. What it comes down to is “a gut feeling inspired by being in tune with the values of the pure German people”.

Another important outcome of this guiding principle was that the focus shifted from punishing crimes to punishing lawbreakers. These people were seen as disloyal to the state and therefore the Führer. This led to a number of escalations, from very harsh treatment in the regular prisons, up to inclusion of inmates in the sterilisation and “euthanasia” programme targeted at the disabled. In nazi ideology the latter made sense as it was felt that people with criminal tendencies were polluting the race.

“Professional” criminals, i.e. reoffenders, were increasingly sent to concentration camps instead of regular prisons. They had their own label category, a green triangle (next to such better known categories as the yellow triangle or star of david for Jews, red triangle for political prisoners, pink triangle for homosexuals). Another concentration camp category were the so-called “asocials”, which included prostitutes and vagrants. Sexual offenders such as rapists and pedophiles were lumped in with the homosexuals under the pink triangle.

And finally, there was the often invoked "three strikes" law, which could be used to keep certain offenders in prison indefinitely if they had been convicted three or more times.

Death sentences

Whereas capital punishment had been very rare during the Weimar Republic, and only in murder cases, between 1933 and the start of the war over 600 death sentences were handed out by nazi courts, mainly for political offences.

Extra-judicial killings

This is a number that is very hard to pin down. Thousands of inmates died in camps and even prisons as a result of beatings, torture and "attempts to escape". Thousands more were "disappeared" before they were even taken into official custody. The largest single number were the 2,000 Jews that died in the camps after Kristallnacht.

Sources

Hoffmann, Peter. History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 1996.

Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. Penguin, 2006.

Megargee, Geoffrey P.. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945. Volume I. Indiana University Press, 2009