The Anatomy of Hell

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

  The Theory and Practice of Hell


    The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them

Eugen Kogon; With a New Introduction by Nikolaus Wachsmann; Translated 
from the German by Heinz Norden

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

By the spring of 1945, the Second World War was drawing to a close in 
Europe. Allied troops were sweeping through Nazi Germany and discovering 
the atrocities of SS concentration camps. The first to be reached intact 
was Buchenwald, in central Germany. American soldiers struggled to make 
sense of the shocking scenes they witnessed inside. They asked a small 
group of former inmates to draft a report on the camp. It was led by 
Eugen Kogon, a German political prisoner who had been an inmate since 
1939. /The Theory and Practice of Hell/ is his classic account of life 
inside.

Unlike many other books by survivors who published immediately after the 
war, /The Theory and Practice of Hell/ is more than a personal account. 
It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi 
concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a 
society without law. But Kogon maintains a dispassionate and critical 
perspective. He tries to understand how the camp works, to uncover its 
structure and social organization. He knew that the book would shock 
some readers and provide others with gruesome fascination. But he firmly 
believed that he had to show the camp in honest, unflinching detail.

The result is a unique historical document--a complete picture of the 
society, morality, and politics that fueled the systematic torture of 
six million human beings. For many years, /The Theory and Practice of 
Hell/ remained the seminal work on the concentration camps, particularly 
in Germany. Reissued with an introduction by Nikolaus Wachsmann, a 
leading Holocaust scholar and author of Hilter's Prisons, this important 
work now demands to be re-read.


http://us.macmillan.com/thetheoryandpracticeofhell/eugenkogon

On 25.06.2015 10:46, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> The first study on Nazi Concentration Camps was "Der SS-Staat. Das 
> System der deutschen Konzentrationslager" by Eugen Kogon from the year 
> 1946. It's based on his own experiences as an inmate in Buchenwald and 
> unfolds a general sociological perspective. A recommendable read.
>
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_SS-Staat
> http://d-nb.info/959859810/04
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Kogon
>
> "/Es ist keiner so herausgekommen, wie er hineingegangen ist./"
> (22. Auflage, 1989, p. 382)
>
>
> On 25.06.2015 03:21, Dave Monroe wrote:
>> The Anatomy of Hell
>>
>> Richard J. Evans
>> JULY 9, 2015 ISSUE
>>
>> BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS REVIEW
>>
>> KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
>> by Nikolaus Wachsmann
>> Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 865 pp., $40.00
>>
>> Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps
>> by Kim Wünschmann
>> Harvard University Press, 367 pp., $45.00
>>
>> Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women
>> by Sarah Helm
>> Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 743 pp., $37.50
>>
>> Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence: The Majdanek Concentration
>> Camp, 1942–1944
>> by Elissa Mailänder, translated from the German by Patricia Szobar
>> Michigan State University Press, 405 pp., $49.95
>>
>> The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath
>> by Dan Stone
>> Yale University Press, 277 pp., $32.50
>>
>> Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust
>> by Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer
>> NYU Press, 374 pp., $45.00
>>
>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/concentration-camps-anatomy-hell/
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>>
>>
>

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