By Nicholas Wachsmann
Little, Brown, £25
An uschwitz is a universal symbol of evil and the metonym for Jewish suffering under the Nazis. However, while it played a major part in the destruction of Jewish lives, it was not designed for that purpose. Though often taken to epitomise the concentration camps, it was hardly typical of the system.
These are among the challenging conclusions reached by Nikolaus Wachsmann in his comprehensive and authoritative history of the Konzentratsionlager, the KL of the title.
One of Wachsmann's themes is the unpredictable development of the camps. Another is the degree to which they were a part of German society rather than a well-kept secret. In the early period of "wild" camps, the police and judiciary consigned "enemies" to the Brownshirts and SS, who ran makeshift detention centres.
There was a constant tussle over jurisdiction, which the SS won in return for eliminating the worst abuses and closing down most of the centres. By 1936, a handful of purpose-built "model" camps survived, with fewer than 7,000 prisoners. There was even debate about whether they were still needed - until Himmler adroitly found them new functions and reasons for expansion.
The real growth spurt was linked to the war. The establishment of Auschwitz reflected the use of camps to intimidate the occupied countries, while its augmentation followed Himmler's decision to offer the prisoner population as forced labour for German industry. Auschwitz became a site of mass murder following the extension of "compulsory euthanasia" into the camps for those considered unfit for work, and the execution of Soviet prisoners of war. Lethal Zyklon B gas was first used to murder Russian captives. The camps later became places of mass death due to overcrowding and mismanagement as much as deliberate brutality, although this was always intrinsic to the SS regimen.
From 1942 onwards, tens of thousands of slave labourers were crammed into inadequate barracks or hastily erected sub-camps. The rations were abysmal, disease rampant, and the work debilitating. Conditions were worst in camps supplying labour to Hitler's megalomaniac construction projects, where there was little difference between the life expectancy of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners. The same dubious equality characterises the forced evacuation of the camps during the last months of the war, when incompetence and chaos accounted for the astronomical mortality.
Wachsmann writes sensitively about the Jewish fate while overturning many preconceptions. Apart from the temporary influx after Kristallnacht in November 1938, there were relatively few Jewish prisoners and the camps "remained on the periphery of anti-Jewish policy". They were not mentioned at the Wannsee Conference. Auschwitz was integrated into the "final solution" in mid 1942 but as a "junior partner" and when Jews flowed into the camps in 1944 it was to meet the need for labour. Assignment to a work camp, especially in the production sector, actually offered Jews a lifeline.
KL is not for the faint-hearted but every page is suffused with humanity and anyone who wants to understand the Nazis should read it.
David Cesarani's 'Final Solution: the fate of the Jews 1933-1949' will be published this autumn by Macmillan