Darstellungen und Quellen zur Geschichte von Auschwitz
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On behalf of:
Institut für Zeitgeschichte
For the first time, this series deals with the mass murder in the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz within the context of National Socialist occupation and socio-economic policy in occupied Poland. The crimes are seen both in reference to the every day reality of the prisoners' lives and to political activity in the civilian world surrounding the camp. The research project focuses primarily on the ideological relationship between "Germanization" and extermination, the involvement of German private commercial enterprise in the systematic mass murder and, last but by no means least, the attitude of the German population in the face of terror and murder.
For the first time, this series deals with the mass murder in the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz within the context of National Socialist occupation and socio-economic policy in occupied Poland. The crimes are seen both in reference to the every day reality of the prisoners' lives and to political activity in the civilian world surrounding the camp. The research project focuses primarily on the ideological relationship between "Germanization" and extermination, the involvement of German private commercial enterprise in the systematic mass murder and, last but by no means least, the attitude of the German population in the face of terror and murder.
This volume documents the internal orders given by SS camp commanders to the guards of Auschwitz. Issued as hectographs, very few orders survived, scattered through German, Polish and Russian archives and have been largely disregarded by researchers until now. However, the sheer abundance of detail they offer renders them both an impressive witness to 'every day life' of the SS at the very scene of mass extermination and a significant source for the history of the Holocaust.
This volume describes the history of the city of Auschwitz during the Second World War, focussing on the conceptional, chronological and spatial unity of the policy of Germanization and extermination both in Auschwitz and the neighbouring region of Eastern Upper Silesia. It becomes apparent that Auschwitz played an eminent role in the economic policy and settlement schemes of the National Socialists. Despite its close proximity to the concentration and extermination camp, the city became the model site for Germanizing the East.
This volume deals in an exemplary manner with the involvement of private German enterprises in the National Socialist policy of extermination. It focuses primarily on the activities of the company "IG Farben" in the neighbourhood of Auschwitz and on the concentration camp Monowitz, built in co-operation with the SS. It investigates not only the motives of the "IG Farben" managers and the alternatives open to them, but also the 'everyday life' of prisoners used forced labour -- more than 25,000 of whom died.
This volume contains contributions on selected aspects of camp policy in the 'Third Reich'. Aided by the opening of Eastern European archives, new questions and research perspectives have been presented, ranging from the structure of the 'society of prisoners' and the conditions of the policy of systematic extermination in the occupied East to the awareness of these crimes within the German society.
