KL
Nikolaus WachsmannKL (from the German for Konzentrationslager) is a tremendous research achievement dealing with every aspect of the Nazi concentration camp system. From the very first camp to open, Dachau on the 22nd Ma
- Author
- Nikolaus Wachsmann
- Publisher
- Little Brown
- Price
- £25
- Published
- 2015
KL by Nikolaus Wachsmann
KL—from the German Konzentrationslager—is a tremendous feat of research that examines every facet of the Nazi concentration camp system.
From the opening of Dachau on 22 March 1933 to the final liberation of the camps, Wachsmann traces the evolution of the network and reveals material that has never previously been published.
The book focuses on two principal themes. First is life and death inside the camps: living conditions, slave labour, punishments, torture and the gratuitous violence inflicted by guards. Wachsmann shows how prisoners coped—some cooperating fully with the Nazis, others partially, and some resisting at every step. He also stresses that of the estimated six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, most died outside the camps through forced labour and brutality.
The second theme examines how a handful of sites built initially for political prisoners expanded into an industrial-scale system across occupied Europe. Wachsmann explores the legal, business, military, social, political and economic structures that allowed the Reich to hire out prisoners to factories and work camps as a source of income.
For anyone interested in this aspect of the Second World War, KL is a valuable addition to the library—harrowing in the survivor testimony it includes, but essential reading.
ISBN 978-0-316-72967-3. Little, Brown. £25