Why did the Nazis write Arbeit Macht Frei on the gate?

Answer 1

All the major Nazi concentration camps except Buchenwald had the slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' over at least the main entrance.

At Buchenwald the slogan was 'Jedem das Seine', which means 'to each according to his/her merits'. (It is often mistranslated as 'Each to his own').

Neither slogan was new. 'Arbeit macht frei' had been used by the Weimar government when advertising its public works programme, and 'Jedem das Seine' is much older. It is the German translation of a classical Latin saying ('Suum cuique'). The German translation had been the motto of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle since its foundation in 1701 and before that had appeared in Latin on some Brandenburg coins.

Answer 2

Each concentration camp kommandant was allowed to chose the motto for their camp. Arbeit Macht Frei was originally in the gate of Dachau. It was copied by three other major concentration camps (as many of the officers had previously served at Dachau, they thought the sentiment apt).

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The motto was used by all the major Nazi camps except Buchenwald. It predated the Nazis had previously been the slogan of a job creation scheme in the Weimar Republic. The use of the slogan in Nazi concentration camps is generally regarded as a sick joke.

Answer 3

The Germans wrote "Work Makes (you) Free" as a form of control over prisoners who hoped to one day be freed from the concentration camp of Auschwitz which is where this phrase would have been found over the entrance gate .

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As far as I'm aware, it was simply a sick joke. The slogan goes back to 1872 and so predated the Nazis by several decades. In the late 1920s and early 1930s it was the slogan of the Weimar republic's public works program designed to alleviate unemployment.