7. "PROTECTIVE CUSTODY" IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 homosexual men were imprisoned in concentration camps during the Nazi era. Under the practice of "protective custody" (Schutzhaft), ostensibly designed to shield individuals from the "indignation of society," the Gestapo seized suspected homosexual men without warrants and confined them in camps along with political opponents and others—particularly Jews after 1938—who "offended" the Volk. The first concentration camps were improvised in local prisons, military barracks, even abandoned factories. Beginning in 1934, SS chief Heinrich Himmler oversaw the regularization of the camp system under SS control. The main camps—Sachsenhausen for the north, Buchenwald for the center, and Dachau for the south—were ostensibly to "re–educate" inmates through discipline and hard work. Easily identified by their pink triangle badges, homosexual detainees—the "175ers"—were subject to physical and even sexual abuse by SS camp guards. Fearing guilt–by–association, most fellow prisoners shunned the homosexuals, leaving them isolated and powerless within the prisoner hierarchy.
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