Typhus and Mortality in Nazi Concentration Camps

Typhus and Mortality in Nazi Concentration Camps

Historical records from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Nazi documentation, and post-war investigations confirm that typhus was a primary cause of death in Nazi concentration camps, particularly in the final months of World War II. These deaths were the result of overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, starvation rations, and a deliberate lack of medical care, which allowed epidemics to thrive.

While Allied bombing raids in 1945 destroyed German infrastructure and severed supply lines, resulting in severe food shortages that exacerbated the death toll, this was not a purposeful policy to kill inmates, but a consequence of the war destroying the logistics of a camp system already engineered for starvation and forced labor.