The concentration camps changed over time and also who they were intended to for. I think the “surprise” was often more about the death camps, not the “regular” concentration camps. This photo is from 1936, one year after the Nuremberg Laws and two years before the 1938 November pogroms. At this point the concentration camps were mostly used for political enemies (social democrats, communists,…) and undesireables (homeless people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “criminals”,…). The death camps that were established to exterminate Jews were created in 1941, the gas chambers followed in 1942 after the Wannsee Conference.
The concentration camps changed over time and also who they were intended to for. I think the “surprise” was often more about the death camps, not the “regular” concentration camps. This photo is from 1936, one year after the Nuremberg Laws and two years before the 1938 November pogroms. At this point the concentration camps were mostly used for political enemies (social democrats, communists,…) and undesireables (homeless people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “criminals”,…). The death camps that were established to exterminate Jews were created in 1941, the gas chambers followed in 1942 after the Wannsee Conference.