Starting prior to WW2, and throughout until the end... what was the timeframe that people started realizing what was being done in concentration camps?

by deten

I know that it wasn't know worldwide, exactly what was happening as soon as it was happening, and many people didn't even know until further into the war, but what I am specifically asking is if someone could show like a text description of how this information spread throughout the initial start of concentration camps in 1933, until the end.

So for example, i suspect it went something like this...

THIS IS TOTALLY MADE UP, I AM JUST GIVING AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR

1933: Primarily High Ranking Nazi Parti Members and SS know about plan to exterminate gays, jews, atheist, etc in concentration camps.

1935: Larger portions of military are implemented in construction and therefore more people see what is happening.

1939: Average german population is learning about the concentration camps

1940: Knowledge is beginning to escape germany, many countries don't believe what is being said.

1941: Much of the worlds intelligence services know what is going on.

1942: General populations of the world know.

estherke

Sorry about the late answer but I would like to take a stab at correcting some misconceptions (very common misconceptions) in your post anyway.

1933: Primarily High Ranking Nazi Parti Members and SS know about plan to exterminate gays, jews, atheist, etc in concentration camps.

There were no plans to exterminate anyone in 1933. The first plans to start exterminating people were made in 1941. The only people scheduled for extermination were Jews and Gypsies. Extermination was not done in concentration camps but in death camps. Gays, atheists, etc. were not scheduled for extermination. Atheists were not even persecuted, in fact, atheism was not against the law or against Nazi ideology. Gays were sometimes sent to concentration camps for punishment but never to death camps.

1935: Larger portions of military are implemented in construction and therefore more people see what is happening.

The camps were not built by the army, they were under the control of first the police and later (from 1936 on), when the police became integrated in the SS, under the auspices of the SS.

1939: Average german population is learning about the concentration camps

The german population as well as those in other countries knew about the concentration camps right from the start in early 1933 when they were first used. The camps were a very effective terror tactic to keep people in line and knowledge of their existence was important to the nazis.

This much for concentration camps, which were vey brutal prisons with a high death rate but with no goal of exterminating people.

The death camps or extermination camps were built starting from late 1941 and they were all built in Poland. Their existence and purpose was secret and there were only six: Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor and parts of Auschwitz and Majdanek (other parts of Auschwitz and Majdanek were ordinary concentration camps). No one was supposed to know about these camps but reports by the Polish Resistance leaked out as early as the spring of 1942 and the Allied governments were officially notified of their existence in December 1942. These reports were largely disbelieved. It wasn't until the summer of 1944 after the very detailed report by two Auschwitz escapees was published in the press that both Allied governments and the general population in Allied countries were thoroughly convinced and fully informed.

See for more details my answers in these threads:

How could the Germans not have known about "the camps"?

How did it become common knowledge that nazi germany was killing its jewish population?