KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

by Nikolaus Wachsmann

Overview

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015
A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2015
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category


The first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps

In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone."

In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close-up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before.

A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374535926
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	880
Sales rank:	293,130
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Nikolaus Wachsmann is a professor of modern European history at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of the prizewinning Hitler's Prisons and a coeditor of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories.

Table of Contents

Prologue 3

1 Early Camps 23

A Bloody Spring and Summer 26

Coordination 45

Open Terror 63

2 The SS Camp System 79

A Permanent Exception 83

The Camp SS 100

Prisoner Worlds 118

3 Expansion 136

Social Outsiders 139

Forced Labor 157

Jews 171

4 War 190

The Camp SS at War 191

Road to Perdition 209

Scales of Suffering 225

5 Mass Extermination 240

Killing the Weak 242

Executing Soviet POWs 258

Murderous Utopias 274

6 Holocaust 289

Auschwitz and the Nazi Final Solution 291

Factories of Death 312

Genocide and the KL System 318

7 Anus Mundi 338

Jewish Prisoners in the East 342

SS Routines 360

Plunder and Corruption 376

8 Economics and Extermination 392

Oswald Pohl and the WVHA 393

Slave Labor 410

"Guinea Pigs" 427

9 Camps Unbound 444

In Extremis 447

Satellite Camps 464

The Outside World 479

10 Impossible Choices 497

Coerced Communities 499

Kapos 512

Defiance 527

11 Death or Freedom 542

The Beginning of the End 545

Apocalypse 560

The Final Weeks 576

Epilogue 595

Appendix: Tables

Table 1 Daily Inmate Numbers in the SS Concentration Camps, 1934-45 627

Table 2 Prisoner Deaths in SS Concentration Camps 628

Table 3 SS Ranks, with Army Equivalents 629

Notes 631

Sources 779

Acknowledgments 827

Index 831

List of Maps

Map 1 Early Camps in Berlin (by District), 1933 37

Map 2 SS Concentration Camps, Summer 1935 95

Map 3 SS Concentration Camps, September 1, 1939 187

Map 4 SS Concentration Camps (Main Camps), Summer 1944 326

Map 5 The Auschwitz KL Complex, c. 1944 341

Map 6 Buchenwald and Its Satellite Camps, Autumn 1944 466

Map 7 The Evacuation of Auschwitz (Main Routes), Early 1945 555

Editorial Reviews

[A] monumental study . . . a work of prodigious scholarship . . .with agonizing human texture and extraordinary detail . . . Wachsmann makes the unimaginable palpable. That is his great achievement.” —Roger Cohen, The New York Times Book Review

“[An] impressive and authoritative new study . . . [a] gripping, humane, and beautifully written narrative.” —Richard Evans, The New York Review of Books

“KL is a definitive history . . . Mr. Wachsmann's most impressive achievement in this synthetic work is his portraits of individual human beings. It takes hard effort to assemble enough sources on inmates or SS men to sustain them as characters in a book of this length. The prisoners had a range of references to describe their ordeals, from the Book of Exodus through Dante's Inferno. In the generations since, their experience has become one of our points of reference in moral discussions, and it is all the more gratifying to see the camp inmates portrayed here with unvarnished humanity. Mr. Wachsmann has in effect united the best of the German and the British schools of grand World War II history: hugely but humbly exhaustive research with attention to character and to detailed narrative.” —Timothy Snyder, The Wall Street Journal

“This is history writing of the highest order, and KL is surely one of the outstanding books written on the Third Reich in the past decade. Its author, Nikolaus Wachsmann, a professor of history at Birkbeck College, London, succeeds brilliantly in telling us much we did not know about what might seem like one of the most familiar phenomena of the Third Reich . . . What we have lacked all this time is a synoptic analysis of the development and character of the entire Nazi camp system. Now we have it and it will not need to be done again. In fact, anyone seriously interested in the Third Reich should read this book.” —Mark Mazower, Financial Times

“Magisterial” —Thomas Laqueur, London Review of Books

“[A] superb book . . . essential, profoundly sobering . . . It is difficult to imagine a more powerfully instructive telling of this painful story, and it will certainly be a long time before this masterly account is superseded.” —Janet Caplan, The Times Literary Supplement

“Deeply researched, groundbreaking history.” —Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker

“While Wachsmann holds himself to highest standards of scholarship, he is also a gifted author whose eye frequently falls on the telling or surprising detail, which makes KL not only an important work of history, but also, even at 865 pages in length, a rich and highly readable book, full of incident and irony.” —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal

“This book is a remarkable achievement. Nikolaus Wachsmann has written the first integrated history of Nazi concentration camps, unifying in a single narrative the policies and measures governing the inception and growth of the system, the context in which the monstrous KL developed and how each of its stages and facets was recorded and remembered by its victims. The study is essential for a further understanding of the Third Reich.” —Saul Friedlander, author of The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

“Nikolaus Wachsmann has written an admirable historical overview of the Nazi concentration camps, effectively combining decades of recent scholarship with his own original research. He captures both the trajectory of dynamic change through which the camp system evolved as well as the experiences and agency—however limited—of the prisoner community. This is an impressive and valuable book.” —Christopher R. Browning, author of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

“It is hard to imagine that Nikolaus Wachsmann's superb book, surely to become the standard work on Nazi concentration camps, will ever be surpassed. Based on a huge array of widely scattered sources, it is a gripping as well as comprehensive and authoritative study of this grim but highly important topic.” —Sir Ian Kershaw, author of The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944 – 1945

“This is the fullest and most comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps in any language: a magnificent feat of research, full of arresting detail and cogent analysis, readable as well as authoritative: an extraordinary achievement that will immediately take its place as the standard work on the subject.” —Sir Richard J Evans, author of The Third Reich at War

“[I]f a bookshelf has room for only one history of the Holocaust, this is a strong contender for that space.” —Stephanie Shapiro, The Buffalo News

“[A] comprehensive and ground-clearing work of research and a wrenching work of narrative. It's gruesome reading, but you're in masterful hands the entire time.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

“Nikolaus Wachsmann... delivers a comprehensive history of an unendurable subject. ...[He] has absorbed an enormous amount of recent research on the KL. From this mountain of material he has crafted a fluent and gripping history.” —David Mikics, Tablet Magazine

“Wachsmann's meticulously detailed history is essential for many reasons, not the least of which is his careful documentation of Nazi Germany's descent from greater to even greater madness. To the persistent question, "How did it happen?," Wachsmann supplies voluminous answers.” —Earl Pike, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Monumentally impressive . . . seems certain to become the definitive history of the Nazi concentration camps . . . his scholarship brings new life to a familiar subject.” —Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times (UK)

“Profoundly important . . . exceptional . . . will surely become the standard work on the subject.” —Laurence Rees, The Irish Mail on Sunday

“A remarkable feat . . . readable, accessible . . . KL represents the acme of what the historical discipline can achieve.” —Dan Stone, BBC History Magazine

“[A] magnificent work of scholarship . . . every page of Nikolaus Wachsmann's magisterial account is suffused with humanity.” —David Cesarani, Literary Review (UK)

“Wachsmann's exhaustive study will be seen as the authoritative work on the subject.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A harrowing, thorough study of the Nazi camps . . . A comprehensive, encyclopedic work that should be included in the collections of libraries, schools and other institutions.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the Publisher

…a work of prodigious scholarship. At 865 pages, it is, in every sense, no light read. In fact it is claustrophobic in its evocation of the depths to which people can succumb. Readers may find themselves wanting out, but there is always worse to come. The book does not upend our understanding of the camp system, whose core elements are well known by now. But it imbues them with agonizing human texture and extraordinary detail. This is as relentless a chronicle of the collapse of an entire society and civilization…as may be imagined…Wachsmann makes the unimaginable palpable. That is his great achievement.

The New York Times Book Review - Roger Cohen

★ 02/16/2015
“The concentration camps embodied the spirit of Nazism like no other institution in the Third Reich,” writes Wachsmann (Hitler’s Prisons)—at least 2.3 million people passed through them; at least 1.7 million died in them—and yet there exists no comprehensive analysis of the camp system, its principles and dynamics, or the forces and people that shaped it. Wachsmann, of Birkbeck College, University of London, fills that gap brilliantly. Working from a mass of documentary evidence—some of which was only made available in the last quarter century—and with a corresponding body of first-person accounts, he establishes the camps, referred to as KL (from the German konzentrationslager), at the center of the Nazi terror system. Wachsmann demonstrates that “the main constant of the KL was change,” and the system’s protean, responsive nature sustained and exemplified the Reich. He clears up many popular misconceptions about the camps. Whatever was needed, be it mass killing or sustaining the war effort by slave labor, the KL served to extend the Reich’s lifespan. “The closer men, women, and children were to freedom , the more likely they were to die in the concentration camps.” Wachsmann’s exhaustive study will be seen as the authoritative work on the subject. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

[A] magnificent work of scholarship . . . every page of Nikolaus Wachsmann's magisterial account is suffused with humanity.

Literary Review (UK) - David Cesarani

A remarkable feat . . . readable, accessible . . . KL represents the acme of what the historical discipline can achieve.

BBC History Magazine - Dan Stone

Profoundly important . . . exceptional . . . will surely become the standard work on the subject.

The Irish Mail on Sunday - Laurence Rees

Monumentally impressive . . . seems certain to become the definitive history of the Nazi concentration camps . . . his scholarship brings new life to a familiar subject.

Sunday Times (UK) - Dominic Sandbrook

Wachsmann's meticulously detailed history is essential for many reasons, not the least of which is his careful documentation of Nazi Germany's descent from greater to even greater madness. To the persistent question, "How did it happen?," Wachsmann supplies voluminous answers.

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Earl Pike

Nikolaus Wachsmann... delivers a comprehensive history of an unendurable subject. ...[He] has absorbed an enormous amount of recent research on the KL. From this mountain of material he has crafted a fluent and gripping history.

Tablet Magazine - David Mikics

[A] comprehensive and ground-clearing work of research and a wrenching work of narrative. It's gruesome reading, but you're in masterful hands the entire time.

Open Letters Monthly - Steve Donoghue

[I]f a bookshelf has room for only one history of the Holocaust, this is a strong contender for that space.

The Buffalo News - Stephanie Shapiro

This is the fullest and most comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps in any language: a magnificent feat of research, full of arresting detail and cogent analysis, readable as well as authoritative: an extraordinary achievement that will immediately take its place as the standard work on the subject.

author of The Third Reich at War Sir Richard J Evans

It is hard to imagine that Nikolaus Wachsmann's superb book, surely to become the standard work on Nazi concentration camps, will ever be surpassed. Based on a huge array of widely scattered sources, it is a gripping as well as comprehensive and authoritative study of this grim but highly important topic.

Sir Ian Kershaw

Nikolaus Wachsmann has written an admirable historical overview of the Nazi concentration camps, effectively combining decades of recent scholarship with his own original research. He captures both the trajectory of dynamic change through which the camp system evolved as well as the experiences and agency--however limited--of the prisoner community. This is an impressive and valuable book.

author of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battali Christopher R. Browning

This book is a remarkable achievement. Nikolaus Wachsmann has written the first integrated history of Nazi concentration camps, unifying in a single narrative the policies and measures governing the inception and growth of the system, the context in which the monstrous KL developed and how each of its stages and facets was recorded and remembered by its victims. The study is essential for a further understanding of the Third Reich.

Saul Friedlander

While Wachsmann holds himself to highest standards of scholarship, he is also a gifted author whose eye frequently falls on the telling or surprising detail, which makes KL not only an important work of history, but also, even at 865 pages in length, a rich and highly readable book, full of incident and irony.

Jewish Journal - Jonathan Kirsch

Deeply researched, groundbreaking history.

The New Yorker - Adam Kirsch

[A] superb book . . . essential, profoundly sobering . . . It is difficult to imagine a more powerfully instructive telling of this painful story, and it will certainly be a long time before this masterly account is superseded.

The Times Literary Supplement - Janet Caplan

KL is a definitive history . . . Mr. Wachsmann's most impressive achievement in this synthetic work is his portraits of individual human beings. It takes hard effort to assemble enough sources on inmates or SS men to sustain them as characters in a book of this length. The prisoners had a range of references to describe their ordeals, from the Book of Exodus through Dante's Inferno. In the generations since, their experience has become one of our points of reference in moral discussions, and it is all the more gratifying to see the camp inmates portrayed here with unvarnished humanity. Mr. Wachsmann has in effect united the best of the German and the British schools of grand World War II history: hugely but humbly exhaustive research with attention to character and to detailed narrative.

The Wall Street Journal - Timothy Snyder

[An] impressive and authoritative new study . . . [a] gripping, humane, and beautifully written narrative.

The New York Review of Books - Richard Evans

★ 2014-12-27
A harrowing, thorough study of the Nazi camps that gathers a staggering amount of useful and necessary information on the collective catastrophe.In a tightly organized, systematic narrative, Wachsmann (Modern European History/Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany, 2004, etc.) presents an "integrated" treatment of the Konzentrationslager of the title that moves beyond any attempt to endow the camps with universal meaning. He looks at forces both inside and outside the camps, from Hitler's ascension in early 1933 to the liberation by the Allies in the spring of 1945. The author tries to move away from looking at the camps as occupying "some metaphysical realm" and stick to primary sources that reveal the voices of the prisoners and the perpetrators. To deal with the mass arrest of Hitler's enemies in the spring and summer of 1933, the earliest camps morphed from existing workhouses and state prisons located all over Germany (Wachsmann provides maps of the camps as they evolved over the years), housing mostly political prisoners and communists, with Jews constituting only a small percentage, to a template fixed at Dachau, which SS leader and Munich police president Heinrich Himmler established as the "first concentration camp." Schooled in brutal, bloodthirsty methods, the guards were encouraged to treat the prisoners as animals, running the camps in relentless military fashion, employing routine terror, forced labor and euphemisms regarding the murders of inmates as "suicides" and "shot trying to escape" for PR purposes. The camp system grew with the purge of SA leader Ernst Röhm and other "renegades" in July 1934 and took off with the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, after which Jews numbered predominately. As the war progressed, so did the methods of mass extermination, from mass shootings to the Auschwitz gas chamber: first weak prisoners, then Soviet POWs, then Jews. A comprehensive, encyclopedic work that should be included in the collections of libraries, schools and other institutions.

Kirkus Reviews