Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili; assassin Herschel Grynszpan; Paul Reynaud, the penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic; Francisco Largo Caballero, prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents.

was a labour camp, outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used by the NKVD as special camp Nr. 7. Today, is open to the public as a memorial.

under Nazi Germany The camp was finished in 1936. It was located north of Berlin, which gave it a primary position among the German concentration camps: the administrative centre of all concentration camps was located in , and became a training centre for (SS) officers (who would often be sent to oversee other camps afterwards). Initially, the camp was used to perfect the most efficient and effective execution method for use in the death camps. Given that, executions took place at , especially of Soviet prisoners of war.

During the earlier stages of the camp's existence, the executions were done by placing the prisoners in a small room, often even with music playing, called the () and told they were to have their height and weight measured but were instead shot in the back of the neck through a sliding door located behind the neck. This was found to be far too time-consuming, so they then trialled a trench, killing either by shooting or by hanging. While this more easily enabled group executions, it created too much initial panic among the prisoners, making them harder to control. Then small scale trials of what would go on to become the large scale, death camp gas chambers were designed and carried out. These trials showed the authorities that this method facilitated the means to murder the largest number of prisoners without "excessive" initial panic. So by September 1941, when they were conducting the first trials of this method at Auschwitz, had already been the scene of "some gassings in conjunction with the development of gas vans".

The prisoners were also used as a workforce, with a large task force of prisoners from the camp sent to work in the nearby brickworks to meet Albert Speer's vision of rebuilding Berlin.

Camp layout

In July 1936, the Esterwegen concentration camp and Columbia concentration camp were closed and those prisoners moved to the Oranienburg concentration camp. That summer, those prisoners began clearing an of triangular forested area. By 1937, the prisoners had erected prisoners' barracks and SS guards' quarters, and SS officers' families housing. The "protective custody" internment camp was laid out in an isosceles triangle with sides long. Tower A was at its central control point, linked to the SS troop camp outside along the central axis. The entire camp could be viewed by the SS command staff from Tower A. Initially in area, the camp eventually grew to cover . Designed by Bernhard Kuiper, Himmler called Sachsenhausen a "completely new concentration camp for the modern age, which can be extended at any time." In practice, however, extending the design proved impractical.

An infirmary was located in the southern corner of the perimeter, while a camp prison stood in the eastern corner. The camp also included a kitchen and a laundry facility. As the camp's capacity proved insufficient, it was expanded in 1938 with the addition of a new rectangular section—the “small camp”—to the northeast of the entrance gate, and the perimeter wall was extended to enclose it. A further area, known as the Sonderlager, was established outside the main camp perimeter to the north. It consisted of two huts, Sonderlager “A” and “B,” constructed in 1941 to house special prisoners whom the regime sought to isolate.

Neutral zone

The neutral zone was located between the camp wall and the prisoners' camp. Between the zone and the wall was a trip wire, , barbed-wire obstacles, an electrified barbed-wire fence, and a sentry path.

Slave labour

Sachsenhausen was the site of Operation Bernhard, one of the largest currency counterfeiting operations ever recorded. The Germans forced inmate artisans to produce forged American and British currency, as part of a plan to undermine the British and American economies, courtesy of Sicherheitsdienst (SD) chief Reinhard Heydrich. The Germans introduced fake British £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes into circulation in 1943: the Bank of England never found them. Plans had been made to drop British pounds over London by plane. Today, these notes are considered very valuable by collectors.

An industrial area, outside the western camp perimeter, contained SS workshops in which prisoners were forced to work; those unable to work had to stand at attention for the duration of the working day. Heinkel, the aircraft manufacturer, was a major user of Sachsenhausen labour, using between 6,000 and 8,000 prisoners on their He 177 bomber. Although official German reports claimed the prisoners were "working without fault", some of these aircraft crashed unexpectedly around Stalingrad and it is suspected that prisoners had sabotaged them. Other firms included AEG and Siemens. Prisoners also worked in a brick factory.

Prisoner abuses

Overall, at least 30,000 inmates died in Sachsenhausen from causes such as exhaustion, disease, malnutrition and pneumonia, as a result of the poor living conditions. Many were executed or died as the result of brutal medical experimentation.

In 1937, the SS constructed a Cell Block for the punishment, interrogation, and torture of prisoners. Important people confined there included Martin Niemöller and Georg Elser.

From 1939 until 1943, over 600 homosexual prisoners were killed.

In November 1940, the SS executed 33 Polish prisoners by firing squad. In April 1941, over 550 prisoners were killed under Action 14f13. In the autumn of 1941, over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot.

In May 1942, the first hangings commenced from gallows in the roll-call area. These continued until 1945.

In May 1942, 71 Dutch resistance fighters and 250 Jewish hostages were executed.

In May 1942, "Station Z" was completed in an industrial yard outside the camp walls. It included prisoner killing rooms, four crematoria, and a gas chamber after 1943. In 1941, an adjacent sand pit was enlarged and made into an "execution trench".

Camp punishments could be harsh. Some would be required to assume the "Sachsenhausen salute" where a prisoner would squat with his arms outstretched in front. There was a marching strip around the perimeter of the roll call ground, where prisoners had to march over a variety of surfaces, to test military footwear; between were covered each day. Prisoners assigned to the camp prison would be kept in isolation on poor rations and some would be suspended from posts by their wrists tied behind their backs (strappado). In cases such as attempted escape, there would be a public hanging in front of the assembled prisoners. Prisoners of war were made to run up to a day with heavy packs, sometimes after being given performance-boosting drugs like cocaine, to trial military boots in tests commissioned by shoe factories.Philip Ball. Naming the victims of Nazi medicine, NEJM Volume 389, No. 10085, pp. 2182–2183, 3 June 2017

did experiments using the lethal sulfur mustard gas.Ernst Klee: the person lexicon to the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 681.Florian Schmalz: Weapon research in Nazi Germany. The cooperation of the Kaiser Wilhelm companies, military and industry. Göttingen 2005, . Available online: Weapon research

There have also been allegations of an experimental drug tested upon unwilling inmates in 1944 designated "D-IX" at the Sachsenhausen facility. Designed to increase stamina and endurance, this drug, supposedly consisting of a cocktail of cocaine, methamphetamine (Pervitin), and oxycodone (Eukodal),D-IX was designed to see use from members of the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe to enhance mission performance where endurance and exhaustion become pertinent issues. While these drugs were used in their individual forms by all branches of the German military, the nature and use there of D-IX specifically (especially experimentation upon Sachsenhausen prisoners) lacks enough substantiation to be considered credible, though experiments by the Nazis upon unwilling prisoners utilizing psychoactive compounds is far from myth, and could hardly be ruled outside the realm of plausibility.

Prisoners held or executed at Sachsenhausen

Seven men of the British Army's No. 2 Commando, captured after the highly successful Operation Musketoon, were executed at Sachsenhausen. They were shot on 23 October 1942, five days after Adolf Hitler issued his Commando Order calling for the killing of all captured members of commando units.

Four SOE agents led by Lt Cdr Mike Cumberlege RNR, who took part in the 1943 Operation Locksmith in Greece intended to blow up the Corinth Canal and were captured in May 1943, were held in Sachsenhausen's Zellenbau isolation cells for more than a year before being executed in February/March 1945.

Survivors of Operation Checkmate, a 1942 commando anti-shipping operation in Norway, including their leader, John Godwin, RN, were held at Sachsenhausen until February 1945, when they were executed. Godwin managed to wrestle the pistol of the firing party commander from his belt and shot him dead before being himself shot.

The Zellenbau of about 80 cells held some of World War II's most persistent Allied escapees as well as German dissidents, Nazi deserters and nationalists from East Europe such as the Ukrainian leader Taras Bulba-Borovets whom the Nazis hoped to persuade to change sides and fight the Soviets.T. Bulba-Borovets, 'Armiia bez derzhavy (Memoriial)' (tr. Army Without a State: a Memoir) (Winnipeg, 1981) (Poklyk sumlinnia, 1993 )

Over the course of its operation, over 100 Dutch resistance fighters were executed at Sachsenhausen. Dutch Freemasons were also sent to the camp including the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands, , who died there in March 1941, after being arrested by Klaus Barbie.

Aftermath

At the end of 1944, Himmler ordered the execution of every prisoner too ill to work. On 2 February 1945 an order issued by the camp commandant Anton Kaindl (1902–1948) instructed how the entire camp was to be 'evacuated.' Since the approach of the Red Army was gathering apace it was considered inappropriate to allow any of the imprisoned victims to fall into enemy hands. Kaindl writes of extreme measures to be taken and of an initial 'evacuation' of 2, 500 prisoners able to march.Kaindl, Anton. 1945. Document 202: Order from the camp commandant to evacuate. In: Auschwitz und die Todesmärche Oldenbourg 2018, p. 665

Around this time there were 58,000 male and 13,000 female prisoners present within the camp-complex and its system, of which 22,000 were registered within the main camp (Stammlager). The others were engaged in prioritised slave labour for the war economy. They worked in outer-lying workcamps (Außenlager) such as the one at Lieberose forced labor camp in Brandenburg.