Here you will find descriptions of a range of terms, events, themes and institutions featured on the website.
We found 1 result for your search.
Triangle
| In the concentration camps the SS stripped people of their names and issued them with numbers instead. Next to the number on their uniforms the prisoners had to wear a coloured triangle. The colour of the triangle denoted the reason for their incarceration. With this system the SS also created a hierarchy of prisoners. The colour of the triangle determined how an individual would be treated in the camp. People who wore the black triangle were classed as »asocials«, the green triangle denoted »career criminals«. |
The SS (»Schutzstaffel«) under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler was envisioned as an elite paramilitary organisation of the National Socialist state. With Himmler’s takeover and reorganisation of the police, the SS became the regime’s central instrument of terror. In 1934, it was given control over all concentration camps. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), formed in 1939 as the planning centre for crimes in German-occupied Europe, was subordinated to it.