The Kingdom of Auschwitz: 1940-1945

This is an excellent historical primer on the initiation, conduct, discovery, and destruction of the Auschwitz extermination camp (albeit with a couple of factual and critical thinking errors that need not be delved into here) as well as the disputes after World War II regarding the preservation, administration, and ideation of the camp. The author discusses in an even-handed, almost dispassionate, manner not only the tragic events that occurred at the camp itself but (1) the association of certain German companies, namely, chemical giant I.G. Farben, with slave labor by camp inmates, (2) the failure of the West to do anything even though it was suspected as early as 1942, and duly reported in London newspapers, that 1 million people had already died in the camp (although this apparently turned out to be an exaggeration), and (3) the failure of the Allies, primarily the U.S., to bomb the railways from Hungary to Auschwitz in the closing months of the war when about 300,000 Hungarian Jews were transported (under the stewardship of Adolf Eichmann) to Auschwitz for immediate termination. (The reason the Allies repeatedly gave for not intervening was that the concentration camps were of no military importance and military assets could not be diverted from the war effort. Although, if memory serves me correctly, the complete and utter lack of a military objective did not stop Patton from diverting his troops to rescue his son-in-law from a German prisoner of war camp.) As for whether the German people (that is, the public in general) knew about what was going on, the author gives no definitive answer. Certainly anyone involved with the use of slave labor cannot claim ignorance of their mistreatment. Nor, obviously, could anyone who worked in these camps feign lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the author correctly points out that the Final Solution itself, i.e., the ongoing decimation and eventual extermination of the Jewish population in Europe, especially as it was put into place at Auschwitz, was in effect a State secret and disclosure of it was punishable by death. For anyone who wants to learn about and try to understand Auschwitz and what happened there, this book may be the best place to start. As for any final answers on the Final Solution, that may not be possible. As concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel aptly put it, the more he read, studied, and learned about the Final Solution, the less and less he understood it.

I had to read this book for a US History class and I was very impressed by the book. At no time was I bored with the book. It's actually very captivating and informative. If you really want a short book that is full of information and does not get boring read this book.

Most of the previous accounts of Auschwitz that I've read have been personal accounts, most recently Rudolph Vrba's Escape from Auschwitz. While these personal accounts are quite powerful and serve to put a human face on a tragedy of almost inconceivable scope, they are only slivers of the big picture. This book provides a broad overview of the history of Auschwitz, compiled from eyewitness accounts, transcripts of war crimes trials, and the memoirs of Rudolf Hoess and other Nazi's involved in the camp. While it lacks the emotional impact of a more personal account, this book helps shed some light on the scope of the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkeneau and the holocaust in general. By itself, it is an important overview, but if read together with the stories of individual survivors, it provides context for understanding the personal accounts.

"The Kingdom of Auschwitz" is an extract from Otto Friedrich's larger, sadly out-of-print "The End of the World: A History." In that book Friedrich examined several earth-shaking events in world history including the Black Death in Europe, the 1905 Russian revolution, and the fall of Rome. The book's climax is this long essay on Auschwitz (with an epilogue speculating on the effects of possible nuclear war circa 1982.)Friedrich was a very talented journalist with a rich appreciation of history and a hypnotically readable prose style. Here he synthesizes the best available literature about the death camp to produce what is probably the best short history of that black hole at the heart of Western civilization. This is a good place to start if you are just beginning to read about the Holocaust. Expert readers will have their sense of the horror of the place renewed. Friedrich writes that Auschwitz does not disprove God: "Two men arguing about the existence of God is like two worker ants debating the existence of Mozart." A small masterpiece.

a quick read for students, an objective attempt to chronologically illustrate the rise and decline of the Auschwitz extermination camp under Nazi German rule in which innocent victims, both Jew and Gentile were maliciously slaughtered.