ABSTRACT
Terror played a key role in Nazi rule. Routine seizures of hostages, summary executions, and imprisonment all kept occupied peoples in line. This system of applied terror operated through a spiderweb of camps established throughout Europe by the SS state. As early as February 1933 the Gestapo rounded up political enemies into Schutzhaftlager (protective-custody camps), the so-called wilde Lager (wild camps) that the SA had set up. These were, in many instances, set up in abandoned factories, warehouses, or the barns of neglected farms. These camps lacked central command, and the prisoners subsisted in impossible conditions, with beatings, torture, unproductive work, and starvation being the rule. As the SS gained the upper hand in its ideological struggle with the SA, culminating in the June 30, 1934, Nacht der Langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), Himmler assumed the key internal security position in the Reich and reorganized the entire camp system.
