Behind Barbed Wire

A History of Concentration Camps from the Reconcentrados to the Nazi System 1896-1945

Deborah G. Lindsay G. Lindsay

• Publisher: Universal-Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781627342995
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

Most people associate concentration camps with Nazi Germany. Behind Barbed Wire examines how these notorious World War II camps actually reflected a previous use of the system, a system that began almost a century earlier. In truth, Adolf Hitler had studi

Chapter One

The Origination of Concentration Camps: Reconcentrados in Cuba

Starvation is killing the ‘concentrados’ by tens of thousands.

Hunger is doing what Spain’s 200,000 soldiers cannot accomplish.23

—The San Francisco Call

Decades before Nazi Germany structured a campaign to segregate and eventually annihilate “undesirable” persons, other nations had pursued policies to confine certain components of their populations. Although Spain, Great Britain, Imperial Germany, and the United States employed concentration camps prior to the Nazis, most historians agree the concept originated in Cuba. There the Spanish military implemented a reconcentrado strategy to diffuse an insurrection mounted by the island nationals during the Cuban War of Independence (1895–98).24 This Guerra de Independencia cubana trailed two other attempts for liberation from Spain, the Ten Years’ War (1868–78) and the Little War (1879–80).

Because the Cuban nationals lacked the matériel and finances to wage conventional war against Spain’s traditional army of 100,000 trained soldiers, the freedom fighters resorted to guerrilla tactics.25 Led by Cuban General Máximo Gómez y Báez, a Spanish military defector, the resisters attacked in small, mobile groups, demolishing businesses and sugar plantations, wreaking havoc on key bridges and other crucial infrastructures, and destroying lines of communication.26 In short, they used every means possible to control the rural areas and neutralize the effectiveness of the Spanish forces.27

Gómez, born in the Dominican Republic in 1836, began his military career at age sixteen after rejecting the clerical path his mother had encouraged. He joined the Cuban revolution, and, as a master strategist, organized the guerrillas against the well-resourced Spanish Army during the Ten Years’ War, which began in 1868.28 General Antonio Maceo Grajales served as his second-in-command.29 Maceo, dubbed “the Bronze Titan,” which reflected the mixed heritage of his Venezuelan mulatto father and Afro-Cuban mother, also had fought for liberation during the Ten Years’ War. When the insurrection failed to obtain independence or even the abolition of slavery, Maceo fled from Cuba to avoid surrender. He returned when hostilities with Spain again erupted in 1895.

Gómez, along with his two brothers, joined José Julián Martí Pérez to command the rebels, and the four men became the main insurgent protagonists in the renewed Cuban war.30 With Maceo as his executive officer, Gómez established a chain of command that created an effective cohesiveness and coordination among the rebels. This solidarity allowed Maceo to instigate an east to west invasion, weakening the Spanish-held positions across the island. Leading a band of mostly Afro-Cuban men on horseback, his makeshift army invaded western Cuba, traveling for ninety-two days over more than one thousand miles, largely unhampered by the Spanish-built trochas, or lines of fortification. The revolutionists, alternately using guerrilla tactics and open warfare, engaged the enemy on twenty-seven separate occasions, ultimately exhausting the quarter million Spanish troops who had enjoyed overwhelming technical and numerical superiority.31

Meanwhile, the island combatants attempted to thwart any Spanish exploitation of their resources by raining destruction upon the sugar and tobacco plantations held by Spanish landowners and/or sympathizers. The ruined fields forced the farm laborers to seek jobs in urban locales, where they mostly congregated in major coastal cities that were controlled by the Spanish. Although the renegades had inadvertently caused this loss of homes and job opportunities for their fellow countrymen, they insisted that the farmers return to the rural areas that remained under rebel control while threatening to shoot any Cuban national who remained in the Spanish-controlled villages.32

General Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón commanded the Spanish forces.33 After he had pacified the Cubans by negotiating the Pact of Zanjón in 1878 following the Ten Years’ War, the Spanish government trusted Campos’s ability to resolve this new situation. However, Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo recognized that neither the new democratic regime nor the national treasury could afford political concessions in Cuba.34 Nevertheless, Cánovas permitted General Campos to implement his own initiatives. By that time, the rebellion had garnered physical and emotional strength among the nationals, maturing beyond any military suppression and, perhaps, the scope of a political solution. Predictably, Campos soon discovered the limitations of his policies.

The hostilities now culminated into a struggle for dominance over the civilian population. Recognizing the military necessity to sequester the noncombatants to prevent them from abetting the rebel forces, Campos placed the entire island under martial law, an action that exceeded the limits of his own personal ethics. Refusing to impose such extreme measures as segregating civilians or exercising ethnic cleansing that would inflict “horrible misery and hunger,” he stated, “I cannot, as the representative of a civilized nation, be the first to give the example of cruelty and intransigence. I have to wait for them [the insurgents] to begin.”35

Valeriano Weyler38

Cánovas then opted for the more ruthless General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau.36 Tasked with repressing the Liberation Army, reinstating political order, and, hopefully, restoring the Cuban sugar industry decimated by the rebels, the prime minister ordered Weyler to crush the insurrection before any possible military intervention by the United States. With assurances from Cánovas that he would have a free hand in dealing with the insurgents, Weyler summarily rejected Campos’s hesitations and devised his own plans. Campos resigned his post and returned to Spain.37

Following military school graduation, Weyler had volunteered for duty in Cuba, hoping the assignment would advance his career. His stint on the island gave him three invaluable opportunities: he fortuitously won the national lottery, which afforded him financial security; less luckily, he contracted yellow fever, but gained a life-long immunity; and, lastly, when war erupted, he was provided a vehicle to exhibit his military prowess.39

When the people of the Dominican Republic had revolted against Spain in the fall of 1863, the mother country recruited troops from Cuba, Weyler among them. Although still recovering from yellow fever, combat confirmed his ability to command and he received an award for bravery.40

Returning to Cuba he realized that while most islanders wished to continue under Spanish rule, they also advocated social reforms, specifically the abolishment of slavery. Spanish authorities capitulated to some of their demands but ultimately failed to comply with the agreement, eventually driving the islanders to rebellion.41 Spain, heavily dependent on the island’s resources, fiercely resisted.42

Demanding independence rather than appeasement, Cuban-born planters and other wealthy natives led the uprising that became known as the Ten Years’ War (1868–78). Weyler organized and led a volunteer column from the zealous, pro-Spain faction in Havana. Ignoring any rules of engagement, he gave his enemy no quarter and viewed all civilians as “fair game” if they failed to retire from the combat zone. When criticized for his cold-bloodedness, he countered, “What do you think war is? In war men have only one job: to kill.”43 This “sinister dwarf” shaped his soldiers into the most feared unit in the Spanish Army while earning a reputation as “the most brutal counterinsurgent”—a reputation that would morph into the legend of “Weyler the Butcher” in the American press.44

The insurrection ended in stalemate and the belligerents signed the Pact of Zanjón on 11 February 1878. Although the agreement freed slaves who had fought on either side of the struggle, it did not abolish slavery and Cuba remained under Spanish rule.

Now tasked with suppressing another revolt, General Weyler seemed more than capable of handling the job. Standing at a mere five feet, Weyler, nevertheless, earned respect as he exhibited characteristics that somewhat reflected his German heritage: authoritative, taciturn, dry-witted, stern, and, above all, courageous, a quintessential warrior who disregarded any personal danger or hardship. Puritanical in his habits, Weyler smoked no tobacco, drank no hard alcohol, and slept on a standard-issued army cot. Though frequently merciless with his men, he displayed extreme passion towards his horses.45

Weyler plotted his “Reconstruction Plan” as he quickly identified the major military problem: the guerrilla warfare tactics of the island combatants and their lack of rules of engagement simply baffled his Spanish forces. His troops were further confounded by the unaccustomed tropical heat. Moreover, many traditional military strategies were complicated by the insurgents’ ability to assimilate among the ordinary citizens. Because they wore no standard uniform, the renegades often went unrecognized and unchallenged by the Spanish soldiers when maneuvering between their communities and their paramilitary encampments. Yet, determined to succeed, Weyler expected to quash the rebellion within two years.46

When Weyler arrived in Havana on 10 February 1896, what he encountered shocked even him.47 Maceo and his men, in an effort to compensate for their inadequate number of troops, low supply of ammunition, and total lack of artillery, had systematically burned businesses and plantations to divest the occupying government of its financial assets. With the island in shambles and its economy wrecked, the conflict had devolved into a civil war. The rebels, encroaching the very city limits of Havana, had been unable to breach the fortifications but the close call had terrorized the colonists, prompting Campos to declare military rule as thousands of inhabitants fled the Spanish-held towns.48 The arrival of “the Butcher” reassured the loyalists—he may have been a brute, but he was their brute. As their savior, he would restore order and racial hierarchy, i.e., slavery, with his decisive actions.49

Weyler developed his Reconstruction Plan as a three-part strategy. First, he announced that garrisons located in indefensible positions would be jettisoned and its military personnel consolidated into larger fighting units. Then, placing the capture and containment of Maceo as his main priority, his army would focus on one zone at a time, moving eastwardly towards the trocha, starving the revolutionary army of resources and allowing the Spanish forces to destroy the dissidents at leisure.50 The general instructed that machetes be issued in lieu of the traditional sabre, enabling his soldiers to hack their way through the jungle dense.51 Finally, the native civilian population would be relocated into reconcentrados.52 Weyler claimed the measure would sequester and protect the Cubans (mainly rural peasants) from harm’s way until the defeat of the insurgents. In reality, he intended to harness the Cuban natives into submission.

Plainly blaming the civilians for the insurgents’ success, Weyler argued that women and children, possessing no neutrality, spied on the Spanish forces and relayed pertinent information to the rebels—in many cases, their husbands and fathers. In fact, an American newspaper quoting an observer stated, “If he cannot make successful war on the insurgents, he can make war on the noncombatants.”53 This stance led to Weyler issuing three proclamations: those who disparaged “the prestige of Spain” or supported the rebels would be tried by court-martial; in order to curtain their movements throughout the countryside, authorities not only would require rural inhabitants to provide identification, but would launch limited reconcentrados for those who failed to comply; and, anyone captured during the armed conflict could be subjected to execution.54

The fifty-six-year-old military veteran considered the advantages of concentrating the noncombatants in a reconcentrado. Logistically, the action afforded Weyler the opportunity to develop his strategy to defeat Maceo; increased his army’s mobility throughout the island communities; and, allowed him to engage in more aggressive measures such as the “scorched earth” policy.55 Additionally, the concentration camps essentially severed the freedom fighters’ supply lines. The internees, as friends and family of the revolutionists, would no longer be able to provide essential suppl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Origination of Concentration Camps: Reconcentrados in Cuba
• Chapter 2: The U.S. Military vs. the Filipinos
• Chapter 3: American Indian Reservations
• Chapter 4: British Refugee Camps during the Boer War
• Chapter 5: German Concentration Camps in South West Africa
• Chapter 6: The Soviet Gulag
• Chapter 7: Military Necessity and Institutional Extremism
• Chapter 8: A Climate of Bigotry: The Persecution of European Jews
• Chapter 9: The “Aryan Race” vs. the “Undesirables”
• Chapter 10: The Nazi Concentration Camp System
• Chapter 11: Yellow Peril: The Japanese Internment Camps
• Chapter 12: Lesser Known Concentration Camps
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index