Sachsenburg (concentration camp)

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For the Austrian town, see Sachsenburg.

Sachsenburg was a Nazi concentration camp in eastern Germany, located in Frankenberg, Saxony, near Chemnitz.[1] Along with Lichtenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and operated by the SS from 1933 to 1937.[2] The camp was an abandoned four-story textile mill which was renovated in May 1933 to serve as a "protective custody" facility for dissidents such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who opposed the Nazi regime.[3]

Sachsenburg was the first concentration camp in which SS used colored triangles sewn onto clothing, as well as armbands, to identify categories of prisoners.[4]

Details about the operation of Sachsenburg, held in 17 files (each containing several hundred SS reports) by the International Tracing Service, only became available to researchers in late 2006.[5]