1) Nazi officials established the first concentration camp, Dachau, on March 22, 1933, for political prisoners. It was later used as a model for an expanded and centralized concentration camp system managed by the SS.

2)What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.

3)The major purpose of the earliest concentration camps during the 1930s was to imprison and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.