January
Construction starts on the concentration camp Ravensbruck.
January 31
Bulletin by Heydrich: Jews can only be released from protective custody if they can present documentation for emigration. A return to the concentration camp calls for imprisonment for life in the camp.
April 10
Report by the Gestapo for the period 1933-39:
The number of prisoners in protective custody: 162,734
The number accused of political activities: 27,396
The number sentenced because of political activities: 112,432
May
The women's concentration camp of Lichtenburg is closed. The women are transferred to the larger women's concentration camp Ravensbruck.
The first prisoners from the "Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia" are assigned to concentration camps.
June 26
The first encroachment on the civil rights of foreign workers is issued in a Gestapo edict. Czechs deemed unwilling to work, politically active, or having "anti-state beliefs" are to be placed into protective custody.
September
Directive by Hitler: German women who become intimately involved with prisoners of war are to be openly discriminated against and punished (they are to be pilloried, their hair is to be close- cropped, and they are to be sent to concentration camps).
Opening of the Stutthof camp near Danzig. It is initially a camp for civilian prisoners and an SS Sonderlager (a special SS camp for, among others, punishable SS members). In January 1942, it becomes a concentration camp.
German and Austrian anti-fascists are arrested for precautionary reasons and assigned to concentration camps.
At the beginning of World War II about 25,000 people are in concentration camps.
September 3
Edict issued that executions by the SS are to be performed in the concentration camps.
September 9
Directive by the Gestapo: Polish citizens who behave improperly are to be assigned to special sections at Dachau.
September 20
Edict of September 3 is put into action.
September 21
Heydrich orders the ghettoization of the Polish Jews. As a "precaution" the Jews are to be moved out of the newly acquired areas and concentrated in the larger cities of the Generalgouvernement that are located near railroad centers. The first major ghetto is established in December 1939 in Lodz (Litzmannstadt).
September 27
Dachau is temporarily closed until February 18, 1940, because it is to be used as a training camp for the SS Death's Head units. Inmates of Dachau are sent to the concentration camp Mauthausen.
October
The first ghetto in the area of the General- gouvernement is erected in Piotrkow Trybunalski.
Opening of the SS-Sonderlager Hinzert in the Hunsruck.
Directive by Himmler: "Work shirkers" with previous convictions are to be placed into concentration camps.
October 10
First deportation of Jews from Austria and Czechoslovakia to occupied Poland.
October 24
General order by the RSHA (Central Security Department of the Reich): Releases from protective custody are not to take place, in general, during the war.
November 14
Theodor Eicke becomes commander of all of the SS Death's Head units. Richard Glucks becomes the new inspector of concentration camps.
November 15
Start of the deportations of almost 200,000 Poles and 100,000 Jews from the German territory Wartheland into the Generalgouvernement.
December 23
Edict from the Supreme Command of the SS: "Work- avoiding" Poles who leave their work place without permission are to be sent to concentration camps.
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