‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – A Translation

Wikipedia cannot seem to figure it out.

Could it have meant:

1. That those who worked “enough” would subsequently be let free? (a lie)
2. That labor is “freeing”?
3. A deception so the prisoners would not realize this was a death camp, not a work camp?
4. A cruel mockery of the prisoners?
5. That they would be worked to death, and thereby “freed” from physical life?

It seems to me that the phrase indicates the Hegelian/Marxist idea, still widely held, of “State Slavery = Freedom”.  The National Socialist German Workers’ Party – surprise, surprise! – were socialists. Wiktionary points out: “The phrase has been used since at least the early 1800s, and appears for example in Heinrich Beta’s 1845 Geld und Geist.” Let’s not be too exacting when trying to understand government-issued literature…

And the various concentration camps this was shown at were often intended at conception to serve as work camps, and not solely for Jews.