Inspectorate for KZ
This was Department D (Amt D) of the SS-WVHA (SS-Wirtschafts Verwaltungshauptamt, SS Economic Administration) which was responsible for the administration of the concentration camps (German abbreviation, KZ). The inspectorate had up to 1942 been independent but was incorporated into SS-WVHA that year. It was located only a few hundred meters from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The head of the Inspectorate was Richard Glücks, who thus had a great responsibility for everything that was done in the concentration camps. Glücks committed suicide a few days after Germany surrendered. Auschwitz’s first commandant, Rudolf Höss, was in December 1943 appointed head of Amt D I, a subdivision within Department D.
Current status: Preserved with museum (2008).
Address: Heinrich Grüber platz, 16515 Oranienburg.
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Kogon, Eugen: The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them (2006).
The exhibition is in German and there is no English translation. Of the original interior there is nothing left because this was removed by the Soviet Union. This is unfortunate because the rooms are now only furnished with information boards which gives a sterile impression. Outside the inspectorate there are villas that the officers of the inspectorate lived with their families. In 2008 these are private villas.