During the first half of 1938, the Nazi concentration camp population expanded threefold due to increased arrests by the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) of individuals deemed undesirable, especially "asocial" and "criminal" prisoners, to create a slave labor force. SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the founding of new concentration camps to expand the SS economic empire. The SS intended to exploit the slave labor of prisoners to quarry granite, which was in high demand for monumental building projects in the Nazi style. This would also profit the SS-owned and -operated company German Earth and Stone Works (DEST), which had been founded in April.