ABSTRACT
In the first week of 1941, Himmler decided to classify the Konzentrationslager. On 2 January, Reinhard Heydrich, as head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), issued a secret circular (later produced at the Nuremberg Tribunal) which divided the camps into three principal categories. The first category (known as Stufe I) included Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Auschwitz I (Gleiwitz); its prisoners were considered rehabilitable. Stufe II included Buchenwald, Auschwitz III (Buna-Monowitz), Flossenburg, and Neuengamme; although charged with more serious crimes, the prisoners in these camps were still considered capable of redemption. Stufe III (or Ausmerzungslager) included only Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen, and Auschwitz II (Birkenau); this category was reserved for 'hardened criminals and antisocial elements incapable of rehabilitation'. This classification was later modified, as we shall see, when the Economic Administration Office (Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt, or SS-WVHA) established three new categories, but the classification Stufe III continued to denote a camp where prisoners were never to be released. 1
