25 September 2009

Venue: German Historical Institute London
Convenors: Birkbeck College (School of History, Classics and Archaeology) in cooperation with the German Historical Institute London

After three years of intensive research, the Birkbeck College/AHRC project ‘Before the Holocaust: Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany 1933-1939’ is approaching its conclusion. At a one-day conference at the German Historical Institute London the participants will present the results of their work and discuss them with leading experts in the field. Research has focussed on the development of the concentration camp system, the changing function of the camps within the Nazi dictatorship, the experience of distinct groups of inmates, the training of the SS personnel, the relationship between the camps and the German population. The findings shed new light on the intricate relationship between terror, state and society in the Third Reich and help to uncover the foundations of the wartime nexus of concentration camps – sites of slave labour and physical extermination that, by 1945, had claimed the lives of two million human beings.

Conference programme (PDF file)