Subcamp

Subcamps,[a] officially Arbeitslager der Waffen-SS, were outlying detention centres (Haftstätten) that came under the command of a main concentration camp run by the SS in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe.

The Nazis distinguished between the main camps (or Stammlager) and the subcamps (Außenlager or Außenkommandos) subordinated to them.

Whether a prisoner was assigned to a physically easy or difficult Kommando affected their chances of survival.

Concentration camp prisoners were even used for the private purposes of senior Nazi officers: for Oswald Pohl's country house of Brüningsau, for Himmler's Hunting Lodge and also for the country house of Hans Loritz, the commandant of Dachau.

At the onset of war, the SS increasingly employed concentration camp prisoners in armaments factories.

Often the supply of food in subcamps was poorer than that of the main camp, quite apart from the condition of the sanitary facilities or sleeping arrangements for the prisoners.

The Außenkommando "Unter den Eichen" in Wiesbaden was the site of a subcamp of the SS-Sonderlager Hinzert in which 100 political prisoners performed forced labor. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
The earth huts in Kaufering concentration camp in which prisoners were housed