How did Germany try to cover the Holocaust?

Answer 1

Germany simply claimed the concentration camps were prisons.

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Different things were covered up in different ways.

Ordinary concentration camps, like Dachau and Buchenwald, were established as very harsh punishment camps. Their existence was not secret. They were intended mainly for opponents of the Nazi regime, and some information was allowed to get out, in order to deter dissidents.

The Holocaust, however, was supposed to be secret. The extermination camps were also supposed to be secret. Their purpose was to exterminate, not to deter, and very little information get out. Nevertheless, not everyone kept quiet. Some soldiers home on leave from the Eastern Front talked about what was happening behind the front ... and the Nazi regime was sometimes careless. In addition, a handful of people escaped from extermination camps and managed to talk about them. Two men - Vrba and Wetzler - escaped from Auschwitz II in 1944 and managed to get some of the remaining Jews in Slovakia to listen to what they had to say. Their report was sent to the Allies, too.

The official reason given for the deportation of Jews was 'resettlement in the East [that is in Eastern Europe].

The SS attempted to cover up the Holocaust and especially the extermination camps. At Belzec and Treblinka the building were dismantled and the site was grassed over. At Chelmno and Sobibor care was taken to hide traces of the Holocaust, and at Auschwitz II the SS blew up the gas chambers and crematoria as the Soviet Army approached. Majdanek was taken after a sudden, unexpected advance in July 1944, and the gas chambers and crematoria were still largely intact, but that was unusual.

Answer 2

Some atrocities were allowed to become public knowledge in order to deter opponents. For example, the existence of concentration camps (but not extermination camps) was well known. Exact details of the inhuman treatment in the camps were not widely known.

1. The Holocaust was classified as top secret while it took place. The public in Germany and other countries was told that the Jews were being "resettled in eastern Europe".

2. The actual deportations from cities were usually carried out very early in morning - for example, Jews were marched off to stations at 5 am.

3. Despite all this, information leaked out - for example, from soldiers on the Eastern Front at home on leave.

4. Some extermination camps were dismantled after they had served their purpose - Treblinka II, Sobibor, Belzec and Chelmno.

5. As the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz the SS blew up the gas chambers and crematoria and destroyed many of the written records.

6. At many camps the remaining prisoners were taken on death marches as the Allies approached.

Answer 3

Germany claimed the concentration camps were nothing more than prisons.

Answer 4

they burned the evidence.