STRAFVOLLZUGSLAGER DER SS-UND POLIZEI

• Previously unpublished photographs depicting the Strafvollzugslager environs
• Previously unpublished letters written by convicts, which describes their hopes and yearnings
• Unprecedented detailed biographies of the SS guards and convicts, which include details of their post-war fates
• Written with the assistance of veterans’ families, their unselfish access to their archives has resulted in a unique publication

Strafvollzugslager der SS- und Polizei: Himmler’s Wartime Institutions for the Detention of Waffen-SS and Polizei Criminals is a book that the SS Leader, Heinrich Himmler, would not have wished written. Preferring that this corner of SS history remained forever in the shadows, in unprecedented detail, this study illuminates the reasons why Waffen-SS and policemen were imprisoned in purpose-built institutions and describes the regulations governing their detention. Revealing details of their daily life, veterans’ families have contributed to this book in an effort to enumerate the lives of those tasked with the prisons operation. Tasked with ensuring the convict’s National Socialist spirit remained undamaged by their punishment, these guards provided the malfeasance elements of Himmler’s Army with a suitable SS environment. Eventually, these institutions become portals through which inmates returned to the Front and this process is examined alongside a history of the various field probation units. Here, Himmler commanded the parolees face death or serious wounding as the means to earn their full rehabilitation. Case histories are tendered throughout and describe the crimes and punishments imposed on those who brought shame on the SS.