Most of the inmates were Communists, Social Democrats and other political opponents of Nazism, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Romani, homosexual men and others whom the regime wanted to lock up.
He was then sent to Hamburg to serve in the RAF's 5352 Wing at Hamburg’s Fuhlsbüttel airport, which was involved with the Berlin Airlift.
He was sent further to many camps, first Lichterfelde, then Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Neuengamme, Hamburg-Fühlsbuttel again, Königswartha, Bautzen, Leipzig and Eisenach.