Would you care to estimate a number that we might use to fill in the following.
The Nazis during their reign of terror placed into prison x number of political prisoners.
The Nazis during their reign of terror, from 1933-1945, across Europe, placed into prison about 2+ million political prisoners.
Wachsmann has 150,000-200,000 people subjected to detention
without trial in just 1933, before the camp system started to become structured and acquired permanence; these were mainly political detainees as the new regime settled scores with its traditional opponents and those feared to become its enemies. During 1934-1938 the daily numbers of KL prisoners grew from 2,500 in October 1934 to 24,000 in June 1938 before Kristallnacht, when the camp population temporarily exploded to 50,000, before falling back to 21,400 by the eve of the invasion of Poland. Again focusing on only KL prisoners, daily totals climbed during the war: December 1940 - 53,000; December 1941 - 80,000; December 1942 - 110,000; December 1943 - 315,000; August 1944 - 524,000; January 1945 - 714,000.
As noted, 10s of 1000s of prisoners were held in regular German prisons for political crimes, but the numbers during the 1930s were small compared to what came later, and many, many 1000s more were in various types of confinement outside the KL system during the war years, when numbers of prisoners in German custody skyrocketed.
I checked with a scholar who estimates that the Gestapo proper arrested around 2 million people from 1933 to 1945, including in the annexed territories during the war, whilst the SiPo arrested probably 1 million non-Jews across occupied territories.
The reasons for arrest and confinement were broader than what deniers complain about (thought crime, crimes of expression or political activity) and included speech and political activity/assocation, of course, but also what the Nazis defined as “asocial” behavior (another term might be “social or political outsiders”), excessive drinking or alcoholism, habitual criminality targeting so-called career criminals (security confinement, e.g., indefinite KL sentence tacked onto end of regular-prison sentence), being “work-shy” or violating labor laws (, begging or panhandling, striking or stopping work, loafing, absenteeism, fraternization with foreign laborers), section 175 offenses, being disabled (T4 and wild euthanasia), practicing as a Jehovah’s Witness, membership in a “local” political elite as in Poland, pacifism, being a member of Catholic and Protestant clergy (think Martin Niemöller) in some cases, living as a “Gypsy,” Freemasonry, trade union leadership or activity, political opposition (from KPD to SPD to Center Party and conservatives to oppositionists in the SA), being a relative of an important political opponent, suspicion of political opposition or possible future opposition, etc.
These categories cross one another, and estimating how many of those detained were held as “Reds” or for strictly political reasons is beyond me. I’ve searched a bit and not found an estimate of the number of “Reds” held as political detainees in the KLs. Even Langbein, who wrote a whole book on Greens/Reds and other groups in the camps, didn’t AFAIK venture an estimate for total number of Greens and Reds in the system.
Some data points: Wachsmann estimates that 80% of all Bavarian inmates in 1934 were still political prisoners but that the %’s of “asocials” and “criminals” (Greens) were increasing rapidly. By 1935 Dachau (in Bavaria) held, out of 1,543 prisoners, 246 professional criminals, 198 so-called work-shy, 26 “hardened criminals,” and 38 “moral perverts.” In 1937-1938 police sweeps for suspected criminals brought more and more “BVers” (Berufsverbrecher, or professional criminals) into the KLs; similarly Operation Work-Shy in 1938 rounded up 12,000-15,000 “asocials” and put them in KLs. By 1938 perhaps 70% of those in the camps were “asocials” (wearers of black triangle). As the SS expanded labor “opportunities” (er, important economic tasks) in the late ‘30s, Greens and “asocials” came to predominate in the camps. Wachsmann says that, counter to stereotypes, by and large the BVers were small-time property offenders, not violent, sadistic types.
During the war, the composition of the inmate population would shift again, as large numbers of people from occupied countries and territory were incarcerated in the KLs as political threats (this is leaving aside POWs and Jews also brought into the camps during the war) - along with local peasants who failed to meet requisition quotas and so on. Nacht und Nebel prisoners disappeared into camps from places in western Europe, as did volunteers for the Republican side in the Spanish civil war caught in France or elsewhere during the Nazi occupation. But also during these years the number of labor violators, fraternizers, etc in the camps increased. During the war, the proportion of “politicals” increased outside the borders of the Reich.
As a snapshot, in August 1944, according to vol II of the Auschwitz Museum history of KL Auschwitz, more than a quarter of the inmates (29,000) were political prisoners - and of this half about 1/3 were Poles, the next largest group being Russians. Well over half the prisoners at the time were Jews. There were small numbers of “asocials,” “Gypsies,” Jehovah’s Witnesses, section 175ers, and prisoners held in “probationary custody.” The data cited were compiled by the camp resistance and exclude another almost 40,000 Jews not given camp numbers. Of the non-Jewish prisoners, by far most were “politicals.”
I would guess that, using a conservative definition of “political prisoner,” 2+ million individuals landed in Nazi confinement of one sort or another during the Twelve-Year Reich as political detainees. Without a trial. Held indefinitely. Often in lethal conditions. As to the small number of revisionists whose asses have landed in prison, unlike KL and other prisoners of work-reeducation camps, etc, they’ve been found guilty of violating specific laws, by a court, and, after mounting a legal defense, given a specific sentence under the law, whatever one thinks of the laws involved.
My suggestion for deniers with a martyr-complex, to get a simpler look at this, is that they inquire about Sophie and Hans Scholl to learn how the Nazis handled popular expression of differing political viewpoints (“thought crimes” and expression of dissent - sadly, they would not have been able to ask the Scholls, after the war, for their experiences). Or these cry-baby deniers might ask what was the fate of Kurt Schleicher, or even of the SA-men slaughtered by Hitler and the SS in June 1934. Or what happened to prominent national conservatives during the Third Reich. To get a sense of how their heroes operated.
