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 ...
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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 classic in the history of the twentieth century.
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Add this copy of Kl: a History of the Nazi Concentration Camps to cart. $84.39, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Highbridge Audio and Blackston.
The title of this book stands for Konzentationslager in German, concentration camp(s) in English. Many excellent books have been written over the years about individual concentration camps in the Third Reich. However, this encyclopaedic work by Nikolaus Wachsmann can be regarded as the definitive history of the Nazi concentration camps. This study covers all of them, from their inception to the end of the Second World War. Although one usually hears and reads more about the twenty-two larger ones, there were hundreds of satellite camps, spread across Europe. The harrowing accounts of the the brutality, the torture, the killings and life under a permanent cloud of intimidation for those who were not eliminated immediately upon arrival, makes for grim reading and even now, seventy years after the end of World War II, when one thinks there is hardly anything left to be exposed about these camps, we are left wondering how the evil, oppressive and repressive Nazi regime could sink to such depths of monstrous depravity. How could they? How could anyone commit such heinous acts? How much do we still not know?
Wachsmann has done a remarkable job in producing this work. He was abe to access authentic documents and primary sources - including first-hand accounts from survivors of the camps - to uncover hitherto unpublished gruesonme details of everyday life in the concentration camps. His painstaking research has resulted in a brilliant, penetrating study, reminding us that we should never ever forget the Holocaust.
