Theodor Eicke
After the Nazi came to power, most of the SS men in Weiden served as auxiliary police officers locally, and, as early as mid-April 1933, they were assigned as guards to the Dachau concentration camp, where Baer was subjected to military drills, Nazi ideological indoctrination, and hard training on techniques of systematic terror against the prisoners. His teacher was Theodor Eicke, the camp commandant since June 1933 and shaper of the Nazi concentration camp system, the so-called "Dachau Model". Baer described the training for guard duty in Dachau as "very strict" and as being "sharply polished" there: "The more we were polished, the more proud we were of it".