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EFTPOS

Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale, abbreviated as EFTPOS; is the technical term referring to a type of payment transaction where electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as payment cards (debit cards, credit cards or gift cards). EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.

=EFTPOS (as a payment network)= In Australia and New Zealand, EFTPOS is also the brand name for the interbank electronic payment system network used for facilitating eftpos types of payments. Other countries use different brand names for their EFTPOS systems, such as NETS in Singapore, Interlink in the USA or Link in the UK. Since the early 2010s, country specific EFTPOS systems have been overtaken by global EMV based systems with contactless payments or QR code payment systems.

The payment cards used by EFTPOS systems are plastic cards complying with ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 standard that have a bank card number conforming with the ISO/IEC 7812 numbering standard.

United States

EFTPOS technology originated in the United States in 1981 and was rolled out in 1982. Initially, a number of nationwide systems were set up, such as Interlink, which were limited to participating correspondent banking relationships, not being linked to each other. Consumers and merchants were slow to accept it, and there was minimal marketing. As a result, growth and market penetration of EFTPOS was minimal in the US up to the turn of the century.

In a short time, other countries adopted the EFTPOS technology, these systems were limited to the national borders. Each country adopted various interbank co-operative models. In Australia, in 1984 Westpac was the first major Australian bank to implement an EFTPOS system, at BP petrol stations. The other major banks implemented EFTPOS systems during 1984, initially with petrol stations. The banks' existing debit and credit cards (but only allowed to access debit accounts) were used in the EFTPOS systems. In 1985, the State Bank of Victoria developed the capacity to host connect individual ATMS and helped create the ATM (Financial) Network. Banks started to link their EFTPOS systems to provide access for all customers across all EFTPOS devices. Cards issued by all banks could then be used at all EFTPOS terminals nationally, but debit cards issued in other countries could not. Prior to 1986, the Australian banks organised a widespread uniform credit card, called Bankcard, which had been in existence since 1974. There was a dispute between the banks whether Bankcard (or credit cards in general) should be permitted into the proposed EFTPOS system. At that time several banks were actively promoting MasterCard and Visa credit cards. Store cards and proprietary cards were shut out of the new system.

Since 2002, the use of EFTPOS has grown significantly, and it has become the standard payment method, displacing the use of cash. Subsequently, networks facilitating the process of money transfer and payment settlement between the consumer and the merchant grew from a small number of nationwide systems to the majority of payment processing transactions. For EFTPOS, USA based systems allow the use of debit cards or credit cards.

Australia

In Australia, eftpos is the name of a proprietary domestic debit payment system launched in the 1980s, owned by eftpos Payments Australia Limited (ePAL) (now Australian Payments Network) that accepts bankcards or debit cards at POS "point of sale"" terminals, ATMs and most recently, online via eCommerce. Not all merchants provide EFTPOS facilities, but those who wish to accept EFTPOS payments must enter an agreement with one of the many (originally seven) merchant service providers, which rent an EFTPOS terminal to the merchant. ePal also sets the EFTPOS interchange fee. For credit cards to be accepted by a merchant a separate agreement must be entered into with each credit card company, each of which has its own flexible merchant fee rate. Eftpos machines for merchants are provided by larger banks and specialists such as Live eftpos.

The clearing arrangements for EFTPOS are managed by Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA). The system for ATM and EFTPOS interchanges is called Issuers and Acquirers Community (formerly Consumer Electronic Clearing System; CECS) also called CS3. CECS required authorisations from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), which was obtained in 2001 and reaffirmed in 2009. ATM and EFTPOS clearances are the made under individual bilateral arrangements between the institutions involved.

Debit cards
Australian financial institutions provide their customers with a plastic card, which can be used as a debit card or as an ATM card, and sometimes as a credit card. The card merely provides the means by which a customer's linked bank or other accounts can be accessed using an EFTPOS terminal or ATM. These cards can also be used on some vending machines and other automatic payment mechanisms, such as ticket vending machines.

Each Australian bank has given a different name to its debit cards, such as:
 * Commonwealth Bank: Keycard
 * Westpac: Handycard
 * National Australia Bank: FlexiCard
 * ANZ Bank: Access card
 * Bendigo Bank: Easy Money card
 * St George/Bank of Melbourne/BankSA: FreedomCard
 * Qudos Bank, Queensland Police Credit Union, Dnister and Indue sponsored financial institutions: Cue Card
 * People’s Choice Credit Union, Bank Australia, Credit Union SA, Beyond Bank, Teachers Mutual Bank, Nexus Mutual, and Cuscal sponsored financial institutions: rediCARD
 * Suncorp Bank: eftpos Card
 * Regional Australia Bank: Access card

Some banks offer alternative debit card facilities to their customers using the Visa or MasterCard clearance system. For example, St George Bank offers a Visa Debit Card, as does the National Australia Bank. The main difference with regular debit cards is that these cards can be used outside Australia where the respective credit card is accepted.

Those merchants that enter the EFTPOS payment system must accept debit cards issued by any Australian bank, and some also accept various credit cards and other cards. Some merchants set minimum transaction amounts for EFTPOS transactions, which can be different for debit and credit card transactions. Some merchants impose a surcharge on the use of EFTPOS. These can vary between merchants and on the type of card being used, and generally are not imposed on debit card transactions, and widely not on MasterCard and Visa credit card transactions.

A feature of a debit card is that an EFTPOS transaction will only be accepted if there is an available credit balance in the bank cheque or savings account linked to the card.

Australian debit cards normally cannot be used outside Australia. They can only be used outside Australia if they carry the MasterCard/Maestro/Cirrus or Visa/Plus or other similar logos, in which case the non-Australian transaction will be processed through those transaction systems. Similarly, non-Australian debit and credit cards can only be used at Australian EFTPOS terminals or ATMs if they have these logos or the MasterCard or Visa logos. Diners Club and/or American Express cards will be accepted only if the merchant has an agreement with those card companies, or increasingly if the merchant has modern alternative payment options available for those cards, such as through PayPal. The Discover Card is accepted in Australia as a Diners Club card.

In addition, credit card companies issue prepaid cards which act like generic gift cards, which are anonymous and not linked to any bank accounts. These cards are accepted by merchants who accept credit cards and are processed through the EFTPOS terminal in the same way as credit cards.

Cash out
A number of merchants permit customers using a debit card to withdraw cash as part of the EFTPOS transaction. In Australia, this facility (known as debit card cashback in many other countries) is known as "cash out". For the merchant, cash out is a way of reducing their net cash takings, saving on banking of cash. There is no additional cost to the merchant in providing cash out because banks charge a merchant a debit card transaction fee per EFTPOS transaction, and not on the transaction value. Cash out is a facility provided by the merchant, and not the bank, so the merchant can limit or vary how much cash can be withdrawn at a time, or suspend the facility at any time. When available, cash out is convenient for the customer, who can bypass having to visit a bank branch or ATM. Cash out is also cheaper for the customer, since only one bank transaction is involved. For people in some remote areas, cash out may be the only way they can withdraw cash from their personal accounts. However, most merchants who provide the facility set a relatively low limit on cash out, generally $50, and some also charge for the service. Some merchants in Australia only allow cash out with the purchase of goods; other merchants allow cash out whether or not customers buy any goods. Cash out is not available in association with credit card sales because on credit card transactions the merchant is charged a percentage commission based on the transaction value, and also because cash withdrawals are treated differently from purchase transactions by the credit card company. (However, though inconsistent with a merchant's agreement with each credit card company, the merchant may treat a cash withdrawal as part of an ordinary credit card sale.)

Cardholder verification
EFTPOS transactions involving a debit, credit or prepaid card are primarily authenticated via the entry of a personal identification number (PIN) at the point of sale. Historically, these transactions were authenticated by the merchant using the cardholder's signature, as signed on their receipt. However, merchants had become increasingly lax in enforcing this verification, resulting in an increase in fraud. Australian banks have since deployed chip and PIN technology using the global EMV card standard; as of 1 August 2014, Australian merchants no longer accept signatures on transactions by domestic customers at point of sale terminals.

As a further security measure, if a user enters an incorrect PIN three times, the card may be locked out of EFTPOS and require reactivation over the phone or at a bank branch. In the case of an ATM, the card will not be returned, and the cardholder will need to visit the branch to retrieve the card, or request a new card to be issued.

All debit cards now have a magnetic stripe on which is encoded the card's service codes, consisting of three-digit values. These codes are used to convey instructions to merchant terminals on how a card should be processed. The first digit indicates if a card can be used internationally or is valid for domestic use only. It is also used to signal if the card is chip-enabled. The second digit indicates if the transaction must be sent online for authorisation always or if transactions that are below floor limit can take place without authorisation. The third digit is used to indicate the preferred card verification method (e.g., PIN) and the environment where the card can be used (e.g., at point of sale only). Merchant terminals are required to recognise and act on service codes or send all transactions for online authorisation.

Contactless smart card
In the late 2000s, MasterCard and Visa introduced contactless smart debit cards under the brand names MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave. These payments are made using either electronic payment networks separate from the regular EFTPOS payment networks, or newer EFTPOS with tap sensors, and is an alternative to the previous swipe or chip systems. These networks are operated by MasterCard and Visa, and not by the banks as is the EFTPOS network, through EFTPOS Payments Australia Limited (ePAL).

These cards are based on EMV technology and contain a RFID chip and antenna loop embedded in the plastic of the card. To pay using this system, a customer passes the card within 4 cm of a reader at a merchant checkout. Using this method, for transactions under a specified limit, the customer does not need to authenticate their identity by PIN entry or signature, as on a regular EFTPOS machine. For transactions over the above limit, PIN verification is required.

The facility is only available for cards branded with the MasterCard PayPass or Visa payWave logos, indicating that they have the system-permitted embedded chip. ANZ launched an ATM solution based on Visa payWave in 2015, where the customer taps the card on a reader installed at the ATM and inserts their PIN to finalise cash withdrawals. Since 2018, these ATMs work with Apple Pay and Google Pay as well, where a customer taps their NFC-enabled phone instead of their card. Bank debit cards and other credit cards do not currently offer a contactless payment facility. ePAL is developing a contactless payment system for debit cards based on EMV technology as well as an extension of debit cards for use for on-line transactions, and a mobile payment system. Using contactless debit cards on tap-and-go terminals routes the transaction through the more expensive credit card system instead of the EFTPOS route, adding to the cost to the merchant, and ultimately the consumer.

History
The name and logo for EFTPOS in Australia were originally owned by Shiyombo Makasa and were trade marks from 1986 until 1991. The ownership was for convenience and all the banks used the name and logo (commonly called "fat-E") on their cards and advertising. By mid July 1986, all major banks and retailers have agreed to implement eftpos.

In 1991, dialup EFTPOS was conceived by Key Corp (John Wood) and deployment of dialup commenced in 1993. Until 1993, communications, connections and transactions between banks, ATM banks and EFTPOS devices where conducted via leased lines (a specific power assisted communication line that detects any attempt to tamper with it) but in 1993, mobile wireless EFTPOS was conceived by Dynamic Data Systems (H. Daniel Elbaum). In 1995, Dynamic Data Systems and the banking industry worked together to implement, certify and introduce protocols and standards for cellular networks, and by 1998, the use of mobile EFTPOS began to appear in Australia.

In 2006, Commonwealth Bank and MasterCard ran a six-month trial of the contactless smart card system PayPass in Sydney and Wollongong, supplementing the traditional EFTPOS swipe or chip system. The system was rolled out across Australia in 2009; other systems being rolled out are Westpac Bank's MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave branded cards.

In April 2009, a company, “EFTPOS Payments Australia Ltd” (ePal) was formed to manage and promote the EFTPOS system in Australia. ePal regulation commenced in January 2011. The initial members of EFTPOS Payments Australia Ltd were:
 * ANZ Bank
 * Australian Settlements Limited
 * Bank of Queensland
 * Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
 * Cashcard
 * Citigroup
 * Commonwealth Bank
 * Coles Group
 * Cuscal
 * Indue
 * National Australia Bank
 * Suncorp-Metway
 * Westpac
 * Woolworths

The current members of EFTPOS Payments Australia Ltd are:
 * Adyen
 * ANZ Bank
 * Australian Settlements Limited
 * Bank of Queensland
 * Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
 * Citigroup
 * Commonwealth Bank
 * Coles Group
 * Cuscal
 * EFTEX
 * First Data Network Australia
 * Indue
 * ING Australia
 * National Australia Bank
 * PayPal
 * Suncorp-Metway
 * Tyro Payments
 * Westpac
 * Woolworths

In Australia, store cards have been excluded from participation in the EFTPOS and ATM systems. Consequently, several larger store accounts have entered into co-branding arrangements with credit card networks for the store-based accounts to be widely accepted. This was the case with Coles (previously, Coles-Myer) which co-branded with Mastercard, Myer which co-branded with Visa, and David Jones which co-branded with American Express. Woolworths organised its credit card called Everyday Rewards (now Woolworths Money) which initially was partnered with credit provider HSBC Bank, but changed on 26 October 2014 to Macquarie Bank.

Usage
As of June 2018, there were 961,247 EFTPOS terminals in Australia and 30,940 ATMs. Of the terminals, over 60,000 offered cash withdrawals. In 2010, 183 million transactions, worth A$12 billion, were made using Australian EFTPOS terminals per month.

In 2011, these figures increased to 750,000 terminals, with 325,000 individual businesses, processing over 2 billion transactions with combined value of approximately $131 billion for the year.

Network
The EFT network in Australia is made up of seven proprietary networks in which peers have interchange agreements, making an effective single network. A merchant who wishes to accept EFTPOS payments must enter an agreement with one of the seven merchant service providers, which rent the terminal to the merchant. All the merchant's EFTPOS transactions are processed through one of these gateways. Some of these peers are:
 * Australia & New Zealand Banking Group
 * Commonwealth Bank
 * National Australia Bank
 * Westpac
 * Cuscal
 * First Data Network Australia (formerly Cashcard)
 * Other

Other organisations may have peering agreements with the one or more of the central peers.

The network uses the AS 2805 protocol, which is closely related to ISO 8583.

New Zealand

EFTPOS is highly popular in New Zealand. The system is operated by two providers, Paymark Limited (formerly Electronic Transaction Services Limited) which processes 75% of all electronic transactions in New Zealand, and EFTPOS New Zealand. Although the term eftpos is popularly used to describe the system, EFTPOS is a trademark of EFTPOS New Zealand, the smaller of the two providers. Both providers run an interconnected financial network that allows the processing of not only of debit cards at point of sale terminals but also credit cards and charge cards.

History
In New Zealand, a trial scheme of EFTPOS began in 1984, with a terminal in a Shell petrol station connected to a bank computer. The Bank of New Zealand introduced EFTPOS in 1985, with the first merchant terminals being installed through a pilot scheme at petrol stations.

In 1989 the system was officially launched and two providers owned by the major banks now run the system. The larger of the two providers, Paymark Limited (formerly Electronic Transaction Services Limited), is owned by French company Ingenico, following its sale in 2018 by ASB Bank, Westpac, Bank of New Zealand and ANZ Bank New Zealand (formerly ANZ National Bank). The second is operated by EFTPOS New Zealand, which is fully owned by VeriFone Systems, following its sale by ANZ New Zealand in December 2012.

1995 was the first deployment of cellular Eftpos in NZ, by Dynamic Data Systems.

During July 2006 the five billionth EFTPOS payment was processed, and at the start of 2012 the 10 billionth transaction was processed.

Usage
EFTPOS is highly popular in New Zealand, and being used for about 60% of all retail transactions. In 2009, there were 200 EFTPOS transactions per person.

Paymark process over 900 million transactions (worth over NZ$48 billion) yearly. More than 75,000 merchants and over 110,000 EFTPOS terminals are connected to Paymark.

Singapore
In Singapore, NETS was founded in 1985 by a consortium of the country's local banks of DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank (UOB) to establish the debit network and drive the adoption of electronic payments in Singapore.

History
NETS was officially launched on 18 January 1986, allowing millions of ATM card holders in Singapore to make transactions through the initial network of 195 terminals located in various retail outlets and by 1993, consumer spending through NETS reached S$1.14 billion. Since the late-2010s, NETS has also adopted QR code payments through NETS QR, which is also integrated with SGQR.

First Mobile EFTPOS
In 1996, mobile EFTPOS arrived, with hotels in Singapore installing systems in 1997 and the first example of a pizza delivery in Singapore accepting Visa card via cellular payment in 1998, which was a collaboration between Singnet, Visa, Citibank, and Dynamic Data Systems, beginning the rollout of mobile systems in Asia. By 2004, Cellular based Eftpos infrastructure had really taken off, and by 2010, Cellular Eftpos had become the standard for the global market.

Usage
The nationwide acceptance infrastructure is the largest in Singapore and includes 54,000 Unified Point-of-Sale (Unified POS) terminals and 94,000 QR acceptance points. In 2011, NETS’ debit system was designated as national payment system by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

title: EFTPOS


text:
Epistle to the Laodiceans

The Epistle to the Laodiceans is a purported lost letter of Paul the Apostle, the original existence of which is inferred from an instruction in the Epistle to the Colossians that the congregation should send their letter to the believing community in Laodicea, and likewise obtain a copy of the letter "from Laodicea" (, ek Laodikeas). "And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea."

This letter is generally regarded as being lost. However, some ancient sources, such as Hippolytus of Rome, and some modern scholars consider that the epistle "from Laodicea" was never a lost epistle, but simply Paul re-using one of his other letters (the most common candidate is the canonical Epistle to the Ephesians), just as he asks for the copying and forwarding of the Letter to Colossians to Laodicea. An additional complication is that many scholars do not believe that Colossians was itself written by Paul, in which case the indicated Letter might itself not be Pauline even if it existed.

At least two ancient texts purporting to be the missing "Epistle to the Laodiceans" are known to have existed. These are generally considered, both in antiquity and by modern scholarship, to be attempts to supply a forged copy of a lost document. The sole version that survived is a Latin Epistola ad Laodicenses ("Epistle to the Laodiceans"), first witnessed in Codex Fuldensis. The Latin epistle is actually a short compilation of verses from other Pauline epistles, principally Philippians. It too is generally considered a "clumsy forgery" and an attempt to fill the "gap" suggested by Colossians 4:16.

Mention in Colossians 4:16
Paul, the earliest known Christian author, wrote several letters (or epistles) in Greek to various churches. Paul apparently dictated all his epistles through a secretary (or amanuensis), but wrote the final few paragraphs of each letter by his own hand. Many survived and are included in the New Testament, but others are known to have been lost. The Epistle to the Colossians, which is traditionally attributed to Paul, includes a seeming reference to a presumably Pauline letter in the possession of the church at Laodicea. An interlinear gloss of Colossians 4:16 reads as follows:

The last words can be interpreted as "letter written to the Laodiceans", but also "letter written from Laodicea". The New American Standard Bible (NASB) translates this verse in the latter manner, and a few translations in other languages also translate it likewise, such as the Dutch Statenvertaling: "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter (that is coming) from Laodicea." Those who read here "letter written to the Laodiceans" presume that, at the time that the Epistle to the Colossians was written, Paul also had written an epistle to the community of believers in Laodicea.

Another possibility exists: that no such epistle to the Laodiceans was ever created, despite the verse in Colossians. Colossians is considered a deutero-Pauline work by many scholars (meaning a letter written in Paul's name by an associate or someone else), based on a number of differences in writing style and assumed situation from Paul's earlier letters. While this is explained by some as due to increasing use of a secretary (amanuensis) later in Paul's life, a more skeptical approach is to suggest that Colossians was not written by Paul at all. If Colossians was forged in Paul's name, then the reference to the other letter to the Laodiceans could merely be a verisimilitude—a small detail to make the letter seem real. The letter would never have been sent to Colossae in this scenario, but rather used as an example of Paul's doctrine to win a theological dispute far from Colossae, and there would be nobody to recognize that the claimed letter to the Laodiceans was non-existent.

Epistle to the Ephesians
Some scholars have suggested that it refers to the canonical Epistle to the Ephesians, contending that it was a circular letter (an encyclical) to be read to many churches in the Laodicean area. Others dispute this view.

Epistle to Philemon
Others have suggested that it refers to the canonical Epistle to Philemon.

Marcionite Epistle to the Laodiceans
According to the Muratorian fragment, Marcion's canon contained an epistle called the Epistle to the Laodiceans which is commonly thought to be a forgery written to conform to his own point of view. This is not at all clear, however, since none of the text survives. It is not known what this letter might have contained. Most scholars believe it was explicitly Marcionist in its outlook, hence its condemnation.

Others believe it to be the Epistle to the Ephesians; the proto-Orthodox author Tertullian accuses Marcion's group of using an edited version of Ephesians which was referred to as the Epistle to the Laodiceans.

Latin Vulgate Epistle to the Laodiceans
A claimed Epistle to the Laodiceans from Paul exists in Latin. It is quite short at only 20 verses. It is mentioned by various writers from the fourth century onwards, notably by Pope Gregory the Great; the oldest known copy of this epistle is in the Fulda manuscript written for Victor of Capua in 546. Possibly due to Gregory's endorsement of it, many Western Latin Bibles contained this epistle for centuries afterward. It also featured in early English Bibles: John Wycliffe included Paul's letter to the Laodiceans in his Bible translation from the Latin to English. Medieval German Bibles included it as well, until it was excluded from the Luther Bible in the 1500s. However, the epistle is essentially unknown in Eastern Christianity, where it was never used or published; the Second Council of Nicea of 787 rejected it. There is no evidence of a Greek text, the language Paul wrote in. The text was almost unanimously considered pseudepigraphal when the Christian Biblical canon was decided upon, and does not appear in any Greek copies of the Bible at all, nor is it known in Syriac or other versions. Jerome, who wrote the Latin Vulgate translation, wrote in the 4th century, "it is rejected by everyone".

Scholars are unanimous in concurring with Jerome and believing this epistle forged long after Paul's death. Additionally, the epistle is derided for having no theological content. It includes Pauline greetings and farewells, but does not appear to have any substantive content: it does not address any problem or advocate for any position. Rudolf Knopf and Gustav Kruger wrote that the epistle is "nothing other than a worthless patching together of [canonical] Pauline passages and phrases, mainly from the Epistle to the Philippians." M. R. James wrote that "It is not easy to imagine a more feebly constructed cento of Pauline phrases." Wilhelm Schneemelcher was "amazed that it ever found a place in Bible manuscripts." However, it evidently gained a certain degree of respect, having appeared in over 100 surviving early Latin copies of the Bible. According to Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, there are Latin Vulgate manuscripts containing this epistle dating between the 6th and 12th century, including Latin manuscripts F (Codex Fuldensis), M, Q, B, D (Ardmachanus), C, and Lambda.

The apocryphal epistle is generally considered a transparent attempt to supply this supposed lost sacred document. Some scholars, such as Wolfgang Speyer, suggest that it was created to offset the popularity of the Marcionite epistle; it would be easier to reject the Marcionite version if the "real" Epistle to the Laodiceans could be provided to counter it.

An obvious question is if the Latin epistle and the Marcionite epistle are actually the same document: is it possible that the Muratorian fragment was referring to an early version of the Latin epistle? While the occasional scholar advocates for this (Adolf von Harnack for one), most scholars consider this unlikely, because the Latin epistle does not include any Marcionite theology or character.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Epistle to the Laodiceans


text:
Extermination camp

Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (Todeslager), or killing centers (Tötungszentren), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Extermination through labour was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps. Millions were also murdered in concentration camps, in the Aktion T4, or directly on site.

The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities, to which the victims were taken by train, was the result of earlier Nazi experimentation with chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive Aktion T4 euthanasia programme against hospital patients with mental and physical disabilities. The technology was adapted, expanded, and applied in wartime to unsuspecting victims of many ethnic and national groups; the Jews were the primary target, accounting for over 90 percent of extermination camp victims. The genocide of the Jews of Europe was Nazi Germany's "Final Solution to the Jewish question".

Background
After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the secret Aktion T4 euthanasia programme – the systematic murder of German, Austrian and Polish hospital patients with mental or physical disabilities authorized by Hitler – was initiated by the SS in order to eliminate "life unworthy of life" (Lebensunwertes Leben), a Nazi designation for people who they considered to have no right to life. In 1941, the experience gained in the secretive killing of these hospital patients led to the creation of extermination camps for the implementation of the Final Solution. By then, the Jews were already confined to new ghettos and interned in Nazi concentration camps along with other targeted groups, including Roma, and the Soviet POWs. The Nazi's so-called "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", based on the systematic murder of Europe's Jews by gassing, began during Operation Reinhard, after the June 1941 onset of the Nazi–Soviet war. The adoption of the gassing technology by Nazi Germany was preceded by a wave of hands-on killings carried out by the SS Einsatzgruppen, who followed the Wehrmacht army during Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front.

The camps designed specifically for the mass gassings of Jews were established in the months following the Wannsee Conference chaired by Reinhard Heydrich in January 1942 in which the principle was made clear that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated. Responsibility for the logistics was to be handled by the programme administrator, Adolf Eichmann.

On 13 October 1941, the SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik stationed in Lublin received an oral order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler – anticipating the fall of Moscow – to start immediate construction work on the killing centre at Bełżec in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. Notably, the order preceded the Wannsee Conference by three months, but the gassings at Chełmno north of Łódź using gas vans began already in December, under Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange. The camp at Bełżec was operational by March 1942, with leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of Organisation Todt (OT). By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands for Operation Reinhard: Sobibór (ready in May 1942) under the command of Hauptsturmführer Franz Stangl, and Treblinka (operational by July 1942) under Obersturmführer Irmfried Eberl from T4, the only doctor to have served in such a capacity. Auschwitz concentration camp was fitted with brand new gas chambers in March 1942. Majdanek had them built in September.

Definition

The Nazis distinguished between extermination and concentration camps. The terms extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and death camp (Todeslager) were interchangeable in the Nazi system, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide. Six camps meet this definition, though extermination of people happened at every sort of concentration camp or transit camp; the use of the term extermination camp with its exclusive purpose is carried over from Nazi terminology. The six camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau).

Death camps were designed specifically for the systematic killing of people delivered en masse by the Holocaust trains. Deportees were normally murdered within a few hours of arrival at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka. The Reinhard extermination camps were under Globocnik's direct command; each of them was run by 20 to 35 men from the SS-Totenkopfverbände branch of the Schutzstaffel, augmented by about one hundred Trawnikis – auxiliaries mostly from Soviet Ukraine, and up to one thousand Sonderkommando slave labourers each. The Jewish men, women and children were delivered from the ghettos for "special treatment" in an atmosphere of terror by uniformed police battalions from both Orpo and Schupo.

Death camps differed from concentration camps located in Germany proper, such as Bergen-Belsen, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen, which were prison camps set up prior to World War II for people defined as 'undesirable'. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the Skull Units, SS-TV), who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well. An SS anatomist, Johann Kremer, after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau, wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942: "Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing!" The distinction was evident during the Nuremberg trials, when Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked, "How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?", he replied, "They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann."

Murders were not limited to these camps. Sites for the "Holocaust by Bullets" are marked on the map of The Holocaust in Occupied Poland by white skulls (without the black background), where people were lined up next to a ravine and shot by soldiers with rifles. Sites included Bronna Góra, Ponary, Rumbula and others.

Irrespective of round-ups for extermination camps, the Nazis abducted millions of foreigners for slave labour in other types of camps, which provided perfect cover for the extermination programme. Prisoners represented about a quarter of the total workforce of the Reich, with mortality rates exceeding 75 percent due to starvation, disease, exhaustion, executions, and physical brutality.

History
In the early years of World War II, the Jews were primarily sent to forced labour camps and ghettoised, but from 1942 onward they were deported to the extermination camps under the guise of "resettlement". For political and logistical reasons, the most infamous Nazi German killing factories were built in occupied Poland, where most of the intended victims lived; Poland had the greatest Jewish population in Nazi-controlled Europe. On top of that, the new death camps outside of Germany's prewar borders could be kept secret from the German civil populace.

Pure extermination camps
During the initial phase of the Final Solution, gas vans producing poisonous exhaust fumes were developed in the occupied Soviet Union (USSR) and at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, before being used elsewhere. The killing method was based on experience gained by the SS during the secretive Aktion T4 programme of involuntary euthanasia. There were two types of death chambers operating during the Holocaust.

Unlike at Auschwitz, where cyanide-based Zyklon B was used to exterminate trainloads of prisoners under the guise of "relocation", the camps at Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór, built during Operation Reinhard (October 1941 – November 1943), used lethal exhaust fumes produced by large internal combustion engines. The three killing centres of Einsatz Reinhard were constructed predominantly for the extermination of Poland's Jews trapped in the Nazi ghettos. At first, the victims' bodies were buried with the use of crawler excavators, but they were later exhumed and incinerated in open-air pyres to hide the evidence of genocide in what became known as Sonderaktion 1005.

The six camps considered to be purely for extermination were Chełmno extermination camp, Bełżec extermination camp, Sobibor extermination camp, Treblinka extermination camp, Majdanek extermination camp and Auschwitz extermination camp (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau).

Whereas the Auschwitz II (Auschwitz–Birkenau) and Majdanek camps were parts of a labor camp complex, the Chełmno and Operation Reinhard death camps (that is, Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka) were built exclusively for the rapid extermination of entire communities of people (primarily Jews) within hours of their arrival. All were constructed near branch lines that linked to the Polish railway system, with staff members transferring between locations. These camps had almost identical design: they were several hundred metres in length and width, and were equipped with only minimal staff housing and support installations not meant for the victims crammed into the railway transports. The Nazis deceived the victims upon their arrival, telling them that they were at a temporary transit stop, and would soon continue to German Arbeitslagers (work camps) farther to the east. Selected able-bodied prisoners delivered to the death camps were not immediately killed, but instead were pressed into labor units called Sonderkommandos to help with the extermination process by removing corpses from the gas chambers and burning them.

Concentration and extermination camps

At the camps of Operation Reinhard, including Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, trainloads of prisoners were murdered immediately after arrival in gas chambers designed exclusively for that purpose. The mass killing facilities were developed at about the same time inside the Auschwitz II-Birkenau subcamp of a forced labour complex, and at the Majdanek concentration camp. In most other camps prisoners were selected for slave labor first; they were kept alive on starvation rations and made available to work as required. Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Jasenovac were retrofitted with Zyklon B gas chambers and crematoria buildings as the time went on, remaining operational until war's end in 1945.

Extermination procedure

Heinrich Himmler visited the outskirts of Minsk in 1941 to witness a mass shooting. He was told by the commanding officer there that the shootings were proving psychologically damaging to those being asked to pull the triggers. Thus, Himmler concluded that another method of mass killing was required. Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss claimed in his memoir that many Einsatzkommandos were "unable to endure wading through blood any longer" and went mad or killed themselves, but he gives no specific numbers to support this claim.

The Nazis had first used gassing with carbon monoxide cylinders to murder 70,000 disabled people in Germany in what they called a 'euthanasia programme' to disguise that mass murder was taking place. Despite the lethal effects of carbon monoxide, this was seen as unsuitable for use in the East due to the cost of transporting the carbon monoxide in cylinders.

Each extermination camp operated differently, yet each had designs for quick and efficient industrialized killing. While Höss was away on an official journey in late August 1941 his deputy, Karl Fritzsch, tested out an idea. At Auschwitz clothes infested with lice were treated with crystallised prussic acid. The crystals were made to order by the IG Farben chemicals company for which the brand name was Zyklon B. Once released from their container, Zyklon B crystals in the air released a lethal cyanide gas. Fritzsch tried out the effect of Zyklon B on Soviet POWs, who were locked up in cells in the basement of the bunker for this experiment. Höss on his return was briefed and impressed with the results and this became the camp strategy for extermination as it was also to be at Majdanek. Besides gassing, the camp guards continued killing prisoners via mass shooting, starvation, torture, etc.

Gassings
SS Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS, told a Swedish diplomat during the war, about life in a death camp. He recounted that on 19 August 1942, he arrived at Bełżec extermination camp (which was equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers) and was shown the unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead. The rest were marched naked to the gas chambers, where:

"Unterscharführer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel [engine] did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, 'like in the synagogue', says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian (Trawniki) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes – the stopwatch recorded it all – the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons, in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: 'See, for yourself, the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day – dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!'"

Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss reported that the first time Zyklon B pellets were used on the Jews, many suspected they were to be killed – despite having been deceived into believing they were to be deloused and then returned to the camp. As a result, the Nazis identified and isolated "difficult individuals" who might alert the prisoners, and removed them from the mass – lest they incite revolt among the deceived majority of prisoners en route to the gas chambers. The "difficult" prisoners were led to a site out of view to be killed off discreetly.

According to Höss, enslaved prisoners, euphemistically called Sonderkommando (Special Detachment), assisted in the process of extermination; they encouraged the Jews to undress and accompanied them into the gas chambers which were outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles, and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before the chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the door until the end. The Sonderkommando talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing. Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that the delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the Sonderkommando comforted older children who might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion".

Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such tactics; Commandant Höss spoke of Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless ... [they] found the courage to joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream like maniacs"; these prisoners were taken away for execution by shooting. In such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed the identities and "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding".

Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses. Commandant Höss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion"; the Auschwitz camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon B gas, which killed before the victim began suffering convulsions. The corpses were additionally found half-squatting, their skin discolored pink with red and green spots, with some foaming at the mouth or bleeding from their ears, exacerbated by the crowding in gas chambers.

As a matter of political training, some high-ranked Nazi Party leaders and SS officers were sent to Auschwitz–Birkenau to witness the gassings. As the Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss justified the extermination by explaining the need for "the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders".

Corpse disposal
After the gassings, the Sonderkommando removed the corpses from the gas chambers, then extracted any gold teeth. Initially, the victims were buried in mass graves, but were later cremated during Sonderaktion 1005 in all camps of Operation Reinhard.

The Sonderkommando was responsible for burning the corpses in the pits, stoking the fires, draining surplus body fat and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses ... so that the draft might fan the flames", wrote Commandant Höss in his memoir while in the Polish custody. He was impressed by the diligence of prisoners from the so-called Special Detachment who carried out their duties despite their being well aware that they, too, would meet exactly the same fate in the end. At the Lazaret killing station they held the sick so they would never see the gun while being shot. They did it "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might, themselves, have been the exterminators", wrote Höss. He further said that the men ate and smoked "even when engaged in the grisly job of burning corpses which had been lying for some time in mass graves." They occasionally encountered the corpse of a relative, or saw them entering the gas chambers. According to Höss, they were obviously shaken by this but "it never led to any incident". He mentioned the case of a Sonderkommando who found the body of his wife, yet continued to drag corpses along "as though nothing had happened".

At Auschwitz, the corpses were incinerated in crematoria and the ashes either buried, scattered, or dumped in the river. At Sobibór, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Chełmno, the corpses were incinerated on pyres. The efficiency of industrialised murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau led to the construction of three buildings with crematoria designed by specialists from the firm J. A. Topf & Söhne. They burned bodies 24 hours a day, and yet the death rate was at times so high that corpses also needed to be burned in open-air pits.

Victims
The estimated total number of people who were murdered in the six Nazi extermination camps is 2.7 million, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Dismantling and attempted concealment

The Nazis attempted to either partially or completely dismantle the extermination camps in order to hide any evidence that people had been murdered there. This was an attempt to conceal not only the extermination process but also the buried remains. As a result of the secretive Sonderaktion 1005, the camps were dismantled by commandos of condemned prisoners, their records were destroyed, and the mass graves were dug up. Some extermination camps that remained uncleared of evidence were liberated by Soviet troops, who followed different standards of documentation and openness than the Western allies did.

Nonetheless Majdanek was captured nearly intact due to the rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration.

Commemoration
In the post-war period the government of the People's Republic of Poland created monuments at the extermination camp sites. These early monuments mentioned no ethnic, religious, or national particulars of the Nazi victims. The extermination camps sites have been accessible to everyone in recent decades. They are popular destinations for visitors from all over the world, especially the most infamous Nazi death camp, Auschwitz near the town of Oświęcim. In the early 1990s, the Jewish Holocaust organisations debated with the Polish Catholic groups about "What religious symbols of martyrdom are appropriate as memorials in a Nazi death camp such as Auschwitz?" The Jews opposed the placement of Christian memorials such as the Auschwitz cross near Auschwitz I where mostly Poles were killed. The Jewish victims of the Holocaust were mostly killed at Auschwitz II Birkenau.

The March of the Living is organized in Poland annually since 1988. Marchers come from countries as diverse as Estonia, New Zealand, Panama, and Turkey.

The camps and Holocaust denial

Holocaust deniers or negationists are people and organizations who assert that the Holocaust did not occur, or that it did not occur in the historically recognized manner and extent. Holocaust deniers claim that the extermination camps were actually transit camps from which Jews were deported farther east. However, these theories are disproven by surviving German documents, which show that Jews were sent to the camps to be murdered.

Extermination camp research is difficult because of extensive attempts by the SS and Nazi regime to conceal the existence of the extermination camps. The existence of the extermination camps is firmly established by testimonies of camp survivors and Final Solution perpetrators, material evidence (the remaining camps, etc.), Nazi photographs and films of the killings, and camp administration records.

Awareness
In 2017 a Körber Foundation survey found that 40 percent of 14-year-olds in Germany did not know what Auschwitz was. A 2018 survey organized in the United States by the Claims Conference, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and others found that 66 percent of the American millennials who were surveyed (and 41 percent of all U.S. adults) did not know what Auschwitz was. In 2019, a survey of 1,100 Canadians found that 49 percent of them could not name any of the Nazi camps which were located in German-occupied Europe.

title: Extermination camp


text:
Enterprise

Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:

Brands and enterprises

 * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
 * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
 * Enterprise Productions, an American film production company that operated from 1946 to 1949
 * Enterprise Products, a natural gas and crude oil pipeline company
 * Enterprise Records, a record label
 * Enterprise Rent-A-Car, a car rental Provider
 * Enterprise Holdings, the parent company
 * The Enterprise Studios, a Burbank, California music recording studio

General

 * Business, economic activity done by a businessperson
 * Big business, larger corporation commonly called "enterprise" in business jargon (excluding small and medium-sized businesses)
 * Company, a legal entity practicing a business activity
 * Enterprises in the Soviet Union, the analog of "company" in the former socialist state
 * Enterprise architecture, a strategic management discipline within an organization
 * Enterprise Capital Fund, a type of venture capital in the UK
 * Entrepreneurship, the practice of starting new organizations, particularly new businesses
 * Social enterprise, an organization that applies commercial strategies to improve well-being
 * United Kingdom enterprise law, the regulation of businesses and public sector bodies within the economic constitution

Organizations

 * Enterprize Canada, a student-run entrepreneurial competition and conference
 * Enterprise for High School Students, a non-profit organization

Computing

 * Enterprise (computer), a 1980s UK 8-bit home computer, also known as Flan and Elan
 * Enterprise resource planning (ERP), integrated management of core business processes or the technology supporting such management
 * Enterprise software, business-oriented computer applications
 * Enterprise storage, for large businesses
 * Windows Enterprise, an edition of several versions of Microsoft Windows

Television

 * Star Trek: Enterprise, also Enterprise, a 2001-2005 television series
 * Enterprise (soundtrack), a 2002 soundtrack album from the first season of the series
 * Enterprice (British TV series), a 2018 television series

Star Trek vessels

 * Starship Enterprise, a list, timeline and brief description of starships in the fictional history of Star Trek
 * Enterprise (NX-01), the main setting of Star Trek: Enterprise
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), from the original Star Trek television series and the first three Star Trek films
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A),from the fourth, fifth and sixth Star Trek films
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B), from the film Star Trek: Generations
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C), from the Star Trek: Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise"
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), from Star Trek: The Next Generation (also two episodes of Star Trek: Picard)
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E), from the films Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F), a non-player ship in the Star Trek Online video game which also appears in Star Trek: Picard
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G), from the Star Trek: Picard episode "The Last Generation"
 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-J), from the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Azati Prime"

Other fictional vessels

 * Enterprise, an airship in the game Final Fantasy IV
 * Enterprise, an airship in the game Final Fantasy XIV
 * Enterprise, the title ship in the 1959–1961 television series Riverboat
 * Enterprise, a starship in H. Beam Piper's novel Space Viking

Newspapers
Australia

 * The Enterprise (Katoomba), in Katoomba, New South Wales (1913)

United States

 * Bastrop Daily Enterprise, in Louisiana
 * Chico Enterprise-Record, in Chico, California
 * High Point Enterprise, in North Carolina
 * The Beaumont Enterprise, in Texas
 * The Enterprise (Brockton), in Brockton, Massachusetts
 * The Enterprise (Omaha), in Nebraska (1893–1914)
 * Malheur Enterprise, in Malheur County, Oregon
 * The Press-Enterprise, in Riverside, California (1885–1983)

Canada

 * Enterprise, Northwest Territories, a hamlet
 * Enterprise, a hamlet in the township of Stone Mills, Ontario
 * Rural Municipality of Enterprise No. 142, Saskatchewan

United States

 * Enterprise, Alabama, a city
 * Enterprise, California (disambiguation)
 * Enterprise, Florida, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Indiana, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Iowa, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Kansas, a city
 * Enterprise, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Minnesota, an abandoned townsite
 * Enterprise, Clarke County, Mississippi, a town
 * Enterprise, Union County, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Linn County, Missouri, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, McDonald County, Missouri, a ghost town
 * Enterprise, Shelby County, Missouri, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Nevada, a census-designated place
 * Enterprise, Ohio (disambiguation)
 * Enterprise, Oklahoma, a census-designated place
 * Enterprise, Oregon, a city
 * Enterprise, Utah, a city
 * Enterprise, Morgan County, Utah, a census-designated place
 * Enterprise, West Virginia, a census-designated place in Harrison County
 * Enterprise, Wirt County, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise (community), Wisconsin, an unincorporated community
 * Enterprise, Wisconsin, a town
 * Enterprise Rancheria in California
 * Enterprise Township, Michigan
 * Enterprise Township, Jackson County, Minnesota
 * Enterprise Township, Valley County, Nebraska

Other places

 * Enterprise, Guyana, a village
 * Enterprise, Trinidad and Tobago
 * Enterprise Rupes, an escarpment on Mercury

Aircraft

 * Enterprise (balloon), a gas-inflated aerial reconnaissance balloon used by the Union Army during the American Civil War
 * Enterprise, a US Navy L-class blimp
 * Enterprise, an Armstrong Whitworth Ensign plane

Spacecraft

 * IXS Enterprise, a NASA conceptual interstellar ship
 * Space Shuttle Enterprise
 * VSS Enterprise, the inaugural vessel of the Virgin Galactic suborbital tourism fleet

Trains

 * Enterprise (train service), between Belfast and Dublin
 * Enterprise (Via Rail train), a former service between Montreal and Toronto
 * Enterprise, an LNER Class A1/A3 locomotive

United States Navy ships
(Chronological)

 * USS Enterprise (1775), a Continental Navy sloop captured from the British, burned to prevent recapture in 1777
 * USS Enterprise (1799), a schooner that fired the first shots in the First Barbary War
 * USS Enterprise (1831), a schooner, stationed primarily in South America to patrol and protect commerce
 * USS Enterprise (1874), a steam-powered sloop-of-war used for surveying, patrolling, and training until 1909
 * USS Enterprise (SP-790), a motorboat (1917–1919) used in World War I as a non-commissioned section patrol craft
 * USS Enterprise (CV-6) (1936), a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, and the most decorated U.S. Navy ship
 * USS Enterprise (CVN-65) (1961), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
 * USS Enterprise (CVN-80) (2027), a planned Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier

Royal Navy ships
(Chronological)

 * HMS Enterprise (1705) was a 24-gun sixth rate, previously the French frigate FRENCH FRIGATE L'Entreprise, captured in May 1705. She was wrecked in October 1707.
 * HMS Enterprise (1709) was a 44-gun fifth rate launched in 1709. She underwent a great repair in 1718–19, was hulked in 1740 and fitted as a hospital ship in 1745 before being sold in 1749.
 * HMS Liverpool (1741), a 44-gun frigate, was to have been named Enterprise, but was renamed five months before her launch in 1741.
 * HMS Enterprize (1743) was an 8 gun sloop captured from the Spanish in 1743. She was employed solely in the Mediterranean as a dispatch vessel and tender, and was sold in 1748 at Minorca.
 * HMS Enterprise was a 48-gun fifth rate launched in 1693 as HMS Norwich (1693). She was renamed Enterprise in 1744 as a 44-gun fifth rate and was broken up in 1771.
 * HMS Enterprise (1774) was a 28-gun Enterprise-class frigate sixth-rate frigate launched in August 1774, on harbour service from 1790 and broken up in 1807.
 * HMS Enterprize (1775) was a 10-gun tender captured by the Americans in 1775, see USS Enterprise (1775).
 * HMS Enterprise was a ship used for harbour service, launched in 1778 as HMS Resource (1778). Resource was rebuilt as a 22-gun floating battery in 1804, renamed Enterprise in 1806 and sold in 1816.
 * HMS Enterprise (1824) was a wooden paddle gunvessel purchased in 1824 and in service until 1830.
 * HMS Enterprise (1848) was a survey sloop launched in 1848, used as a coal hulk from 1860 and sold in 1903.
 * HMS Enterprise was to have been a wooden screw sloop. She was laid down in 1861, renamed HMS Circassian in 1862 but cancelled in 1863.
 * HMS Enterprise (1864) was an ironclad sloop ordered as HMS Circassian, but renamed in 1862. She was launched in 1864 and sold in 1884.
 * HMS Enterprise (D52) was an Emerald-class cruiser light cruiser launched in 1919 and sold in 1946.
 * HMS Enterprise (A71) was an Echo-class survey ship (1957) inshore survey ship launched in 1958 and sold in 1985.
 * HMS Enterprise (H88) is an Echo-class survey ship (2002) multi-role survey vessel (hydrographic/oceanographic) launched in 2002 and currently in service.

Other ships

 * Enterprise, a J-class yacht involved in the America's Cup
 * Enterprise, a schooner, previously a privateer, used by the Continental Navy in Chesapeake Bay until 1777
 * Enterprise, a steamboat operating during the Battle of New Orleans
 * Enterprize, an Australian topsail schooner used for the founding of Melbourne, Australia
 * Enterprize, a replica of the 1829 Enterprize
 * Enterprise, forced by weather into Bermuda in 1835, resulting in the liberation of most of the slaves on board
 * Enterprise, a Canadian 19th-century steamer on the Columbia and Fraser rivers
 * Enterprise, a sidewheeler, built in San Francisco, operated on the Fraser River system, from 1861 to her loss in 1885
 * Enterprise, a Canadian pioneer sternwheeler on the upper Fraser River
 * PS Enterprise, an 1878 Australian paddle steamer on the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers
 * Enterprise, an American steamboat that operated on the Willamette River in Oregon
 * Enterprise, a sailing ship caught in a storm off St. Ives, Cornwall in 1903
 * London Enterprise (1950), an oil tanker built for London & Overseas Freighters, scrapped c. 1974
 * London Enterprise (1983), a Panamax oil tanker built for London & Overseas Freighters
 * SS Flying Enterprise (1944–1952), an American cargo ship originally commissioned as the SS Cape Kumukaki (C1-B)
 * Enterprise, see Boats of the Mackenzie River watershed

Ship classes

 * Enterprise, a class of sailboat
 * Discoverer Enterprise, the namesake of a class of deepwater drillships

Other uses

 * Enterprise (apple)
 * Enterprise (horse), a British Thoroughbred racehorse
 * Enterprise (ride), an amusement ride
 * Enterprise Cup, an annual rugby union competition in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
 * Enterprise MRT station, an upcoming MRT station on the Jurong Region line in Singapore
 * Enterprise number, a former type of US business phone number which would automatically accept a collect call
 * USS Enterprise (BLDG 7115), a U.S. Navy Recruit Barracks named in honor of the Navy's Enterprise ships
 * "The Enterprise", a secret operation carried out by senior officials of the Reagan administration, used to identify the perpetrators of the Iran-Contra affair.

title: Enterprise