Command and Control Authority
The camp was established under the order of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) in 1941. The administration of the main camp was under the authority of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA), which oversaw the SS officers and soldiers who were responsible for camp administration—themselves members of the SS Concentration Camp service, or the Totenkopfverbande (SS-TV). Security within the camp was provided by guard battalions of the SS-TV and police battalion troops of the Ordnungspolizei. An internal police force, run by the Jewish inmates themselves, was known as the Ordnungsdienst and answered directly to the SS. The camp also made use of local Czech Gendarmerie guards who collaborated with the Germans in the enslavement, deportation and murder of Jews.
By 1943, the Concentration Camp service of the SS had been completely folded into the Waffen-SS, with most of the camp staff and guards serving as reserve Waffen-SS soldiers. The Gestapo also maintained a presence at the camp, in that it was the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst that oversaw the day-to-day operations in the "Small Fortress" prison. The direct command authority for the camp itself was the Inspector of Concentration Camps, to which the Commandant reported to directly, yet the camp also received orders from the RSHA (specifically Department IV-B4 under Adolf Eichmann), the Office of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (under Reinhard Heydrich), and the office of the local SS and Police Leader.
During the camp's existence, three officers served as Camp Commandant: Siegfried Seidl, Anton Burger, and Karl Rahm.
Read more about this topic: Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
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