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Their original purpose was to have secure units for political prisoners
Their original purpose was to take anybody the regime didn't like which broadened considerably over the years.
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Not all concentration camps were extermination or work camps.
Can you say which were not and when ( if relevant.) I would be interested to know.
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I know at least one which was until recently still in use as a police barracks.
Which one please ?
The list of camps and their uses is better googled.
The original reason for concentration camps was to detain political prisoners as it was outside the scope of the police and the judiciary demanded due process before they could detain and imprison.
At Dachau the former SS barracks adjacent to the camp are now occupied by the Bavarian Bereitschaftspolizei (rapid response police unit)
It is some years since I researched it but this is what I remember as my view at the time.
Germany is a country with a strong religious background and in the 1930s the National Socialists made a number of overtures to the Church to find a justification for the euthanasia program. I do recall one, apparently sympathetic ear, was that of the Bishop of Buckeburg and overtures were also made to the Vatican.
If you are interested the following is my pick of an extensive coverage.
The standard book in my day was Hitler’s Death Camps by Konnilyn Fieg, a balanced view.
The best book I read on the psychology of the camp administrators is Into That Darkness by Gitta Sereny. A story of how Franz Stangl got into and out of the Holocaust. The vision of him supervising the gassing and burning of thousands in his working hours then riding home on his white horse afterwards to tea on the lawn in front of his house with his wife and children stayed with me a long time.
The film Shoa by Claude Lanzmann gives perhaps the best insight into the relationship between the camps and the rural Germans.