Theodor Eicke (1892-1943)

In July 1933 Eicke was appointed commandant of the concentration camp Dachau. On 4 July 1934 Heinrich Himmler officially appointed him ‘Inspector of the Concentration Camps & the SS-Guardsmen’. Eicke was thus head of the notorious SS-Totenkopf-Verbände (death’s-head troops). In this position Eicke built up Dachau as the model concentration camp and was responsible for the development of the concentration camp system. Eicke was also responsible for the training of the SS guards in the camps. These guards later left their stamp on the extermination camps, where “Eicke’s Boys” made up the leading guardsmen. Eicke fell on the eastern front on 16 February 1943 as Obergruppenführer (General) in the Waffen-SS.