“The Auschwitz camp was created to annihilate the Polish underground, not the European Jews,” emphasized the German historian
Posted by Maruch on 2016-05-29 (Sunday)
Nikolaus Wachsmann, the author of the first comprehensive past of German concentration camps, believes that Auschwitz cannot be identified only with the Holocaust, due to the fact that its first intent was to fight the Polish underground and then to destruct russian prisoners.
“Auschwitz has late become synonymous with the Holocaust,” said the German historian, presenting his book “KL. past of National Socialist Concentration Camps” in Berlin, which has been available in German since May.
Wachsmann stated that the Holocaust could not be narrowed down to Auschwitz, as most Jews were murdered outside the strategy of concentration camps, in ditches and forests, in ghettos in occupied east Europe and in peculiar death camps specified as Treblinka, which had 1 intent – to execution as many Jews as possible.
Auschwitz was simultaneously more than just a Holocaust. Camp was created in 1940 to annihilate the Polish underground, not European Jews. He was then utilized from 1941 to exploit and execution russian prisoners of war. For them it was intended to extend the camp to Birkenau, where the SS will later build gas chambers to kill Jews," Wachsmann explained.
He added that even erstwhile Auschwitz became primarily a camp for the extermination of Jews, it besides performed another functions – it was the place of cruel medical experiments and the centre of arms production.
On almost a 1000 pages, Wachsmann presents the past of the formation and functioning of a strategy consisting of 27 concentration camps and over 1,100 associated subcamps. He describes the various stages of the improvement of this system, pointing out that the direction of change was not foregone and was the consequence of a fight between Nazi influence groups.
The first camps were formed immediately after Adolf Hitler took power on 30 January 1933. They were meant for German oppositionists, mainly communists and unionists. Prisoners were placed in buildings in abandoned factories, hotels, ships and castles, and even basements of residential houses. These makeshift retreat sites were shortly eliminated, and most of the detainees went free after a fewer months.
At the turn of 1934/1935, the power apparatus discussed whether camps were needed. The dispute was determined by Wachsmann by Hitler, who declared unlawful panic to be “a useful instrument of power”. On his initiative, the construction of an official, organized system, the first model component of which was the camp in Dachau, began.
As Wachsmann points out, before the outbreak of planet War II, there were fewer more than 20,000 people in concentration camps, mostly people considered as an asocial component – homeless, beggars, prostitutes and petty criminals.
World War II became a cezure in the past of the concentration camp system. The outbreak of the war meant “a dramatic change”, the German historian emphasizes.
In his opinion, Stalin gulags before 1939 can be considered much more brutal than German gulags. After the outbreak of the war, the situation changed dramatically – the camps cease to be a place of isolation for German opponents of the 3rd Reich, and become an instrument of panic towards the occupied nations and then a place of Holocaust.
By the end of the war, the Germans had deported about 2.3 million people to camps, most of whom were killed.
Many places are devoted to the economics of the camp. The SS practiced “modern intermediation of slaves”, as quoted by 1 of the Wachsmann prisoners. The SS benefited from the “rentation” of prisoners to armed entrepreneurs.
As 1 of the central themes the historian considers the attitude of German society to camps.
After the war ended The Germans claimed that they knew nothing about the camps. This is 1 of the founding myths of Germany – reminds Wachsmann. In his opinion, this story is completely false, and knowledge of the existence of camps was an component of social awareness from the beginning.
From the beginning Germany has witnessed the formation of camps; they see, hear, know the deported people. SS propaganda does not hide the existence of camps, on the contrary, it uses information about them to intimidate the public. Since the mid-1930s, there was no request to talk about "kacetes" – everyone knew about them and was afraid of them – he explains.
A British German historian worked on the book for 10 years. A well-known British past investigator of the 3rd Reich Ian Kershaw said after the English version of the book appeared last year that Wachsmann's work is simply a work that “can’t be surpassed”.
At a gathering in Berlin, Wachsmann stressed that despite the existence of thousands of books on camps and the Holocaust, they should inactive be written about.
– If historians stay silent, madmen, disputers, and those questioning crimes will get to the vote. We can't let that happen," he said.
