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4.58 AVERAGE
4.58 AVERAGE
slow-paced
When studying World War 2 you will inevitably have to face the atrocities of the war through something other than chapters within other histories. When you decide to face the part that is the Nazi concentration camps, may I recommend this book. Wachsmann will take you on a surprisingly readable journey from their beginnings in 1933 to their demise in 1945. I do not think you could find a more comprehensive, one-volume, history that does not read like an academic study.
An incredibly detailed history of concentration camps, this book is a must read because it breaks down - in clear, unemotional detail (and this is a good thing here) - the structures of the camps and how the idea of mass killings began and led to the 'final solution' as well as the hierarchies within prisoners. It's also a very good book in trying to understand the idea of responsibility in mass killings, particularly as it explains the lower tiers of the Nazi regime and the camp management, and the section on kapos is a good example of that.
A great work of history, on one of the darkest moments of mankind. The book fills in a number of gaps from other Nazi histories and is written very well. I found it a hard book to get through mostly due to the content moreso than the academic style writing the first third is a quick read followed by the staggering numbers of abuse and depravity.
KL: From the German “Konzentrationslager”, or concentration camp
“Terror stood at the center of the Third Reich, and no other institution embodied Nazi terror more fully than the KL.”, said the author of this book. If a person thinks they know something about Nazi horrors in WWII, this book will make you think you know nothing. It was one monstrous thing after another in Nikolaus Wachsmann’s comprehensive and detailed book. Just as the Ravensbruck women’s camp was unknown to me until reading the book of the same name, so were the dozens and dozens of other main and satellite camps listed in “KL”. There were hundreds of them. Throughout the book, Mr. Wachsmann dissuades the reader about Germans not knowing about the concentration camps, saying “Not only were most Germans aware of their existence, they knew the camps stood for brutal repression.” I never heard the term “Muselmanner” before but we’ve all seen them in the old WWII videos of the camps. “The Muselmanner were the living dead…..”. Primo Levi, one of the more famous inmates of the concentration camps, wrote this about them: “If I could enclose all the evil of our time in one image, I would choose this image which is familiar to me: an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of thought is to be seen, the divine spark dead within them.” This is a hard book to get through, because of the subject matter, but it turned out to be only 697 pages on my eReader, much less than the 1100 pages total.
But, the normal German person didn’t know about this in WWII, and this is a scathing old John Denver song written by Tom Paxton, about that and more that “we didn’t know” in the U.S too:
http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/VintageJohnDenver/We%20Didn%27t%20Know.mp3
“Terror stood at the center of the Third Reich, and no other institution embodied Nazi terror more fully than the KL.”, said the author of this book. If a person thinks they know something about Nazi horrors in WWII, this book will make you think you know nothing. It was one monstrous thing after another in Nikolaus Wachsmann’s comprehensive and detailed book. Just as the Ravensbruck women’s camp was unknown to me until reading the book of the same name, so were the dozens and dozens of other main and satellite camps listed in “KL”. There were hundreds of them. Throughout the book, Mr. Wachsmann dissuades the reader about Germans not knowing about the concentration camps, saying “Not only were most Germans aware of their existence, they knew the camps stood for brutal repression.” I never heard the term “Muselmanner” before but we’ve all seen them in the old WWII videos of the camps. “The Muselmanner were the living dead…..”. Primo Levi, one of the more famous inmates of the concentration camps, wrote this about them: “If I could enclose all the evil of our time in one image, I would choose this image which is familiar to me: an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of thought is to be seen, the divine spark dead within them.” This is a hard book to get through, because of the subject matter, but it turned out to be only 697 pages on my eReader, much less than the 1100 pages total.
But, the normal German person didn’t know about this in WWII, and this is a scathing old John Denver song written by Tom Paxton, about that and more that “we didn’t know” in the U.S too:
http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/VintageJohnDenver/We%20Didn%27t%20Know.mp3
What an impressive book. It's really huge and listening to it, I couldn't keep everything straight. This is one of those books that you read once and then you just go back for sections of it that you may need for research or other random things. Very good and very well-written. It basically starts back in the 30s and carries on through WWII, even after it to talk about things that have happened after it. Public perceptions and those things. I would highly suggest it for someone who is interested in this topic otherwise it's going to be very dry.