The concentration camps were run by the German government and operated according to strict official regulations, many of which were kept secret. The entire governmental bureaucracy was committed to the implementation of the unique camp system. This system not only provided a way to carry out mass extermination but also served as a way to fulfill Nazi ideology by treating their victims as subhuman beings. In addition, the existence of the camps allowed the government to profit from slave labor and stolen property, to gain so-called scientific knowledge under the pretense of medical experimentation using living persons, and even to use body parts of murdered prisoners for industrial purposes (such as lampshades made from human skin).

In order to create the concentration camps and carry out the "final solution," there was an enormous investment of resources, especially manpower. Auschwitz alone, the largest and most...