Civilian Internee is a special status of a prisoner under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Civilian Internees are civilians who are detained by a party to a war for security reasons. Historical examples include Japanese American internment

Japanese American internment

Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

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Internment of civilians in Occupied Germany after World War II

Long before 1945, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force , was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was in command of SHAEF throughout its existence...

 had worked out automatic arrest categories ranging from the top Nazi Party leadership to the Ortsgruppenleiter(local group leader) from the top Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 agents to leaders of the Hitler Youth

Hitler Youth

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...

, the Peasants' League, and the Labor Front. In May and June 1945 about 700 civilians a day were arrested, and a total of over 18,000 in August. In September 1945, 82,000 suspects were being held in internment camps, available for possible trial and sentencing as members of criminal organizations. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/other/us-army_germany_1944-46_ch21.htm#b1

Well over 100,000 Germans were incarcerated by December 1945, according to Harold Marcuse. Members of the SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

 and functionaries of the Nazi party and its affiliated organizations who were covered by the category of "automatic arrest" were interned by the U.S. occupation authorities in former Dachau concentration camp. The first of these prisoners were released at the beginning of 1946.

The Soviet Union

Soviet Military Administration in Germany

The Soviet Military Administration in Germany was the Soviet military government, headquartered in Berlin-Karlshorst, that directly ruled the Soviet occupation zone of Germany from the German surrender in May 1945 until after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic in October...

 set up ten Special Camps

NKVD special camps

NKVD special camps were NKVD-run late and post-World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany and areas east of the Oder-Neisse line. The short-lived camps east of the line were subsequently transferred to the Soviet occupation zone, where they were set up by the Soviet...

 in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, the former Buchenwald concentration camp became Special Camp No. 2 while Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

 became Special Camp No. 7. They were run by NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

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The British also set up a number of camps: the former Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 became No. 6 Civil Internment Camp and KZ Esterwegen

KZ Esterwegen

KZ Esterwegen was one of a series of camps first established in the Emsland region of Germany near Papenburg in 1933 as prison camps for political prisoners by the Nazi regime. It was one of 15 camps in the Emsland region and was designated as "Lager VII"....

became No. 9 Civil Internment Camp. http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/NaziPrison.html