The Buchenwald Report

by David A. Hackett

In the closing weeks of World War II, advancing Allied armies uncovered the horror of the Nazi concentration camps. The first camp to be liberated in western Germany was Buchenwald, on April 11, 1945. Within days, a special team of German-speaking intelligence officers from the U.S. Army was dispatched to Buchenwald to interview the prisoners there. In the short time available to them before the inmates' final release from the camp, this team was to prepare a report to be used against the Nazis in future war crimes trials. Nowhere else was such a systematic effort made to talk with prisoners and record their firsthand knowledge of the daily life, structure, and functioning of a concentration camp. The result was an important and unique document, The Buchenwald Report. Shockingly, not long after the war ended The Buchenwald Report was almost lost forever. Only selected portions were entered as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Professor Eugen Kogon, a prisoner at Buchenwald who assisted the Army specialists in conducting their interviews and writing the report, made use of the material gathered as a background source for his classic book, The Theory and Practice of Hell, but subsequently his copy was accidently destroyed. Thus the complete report was never published, and both the original document and a precious handful of copies gradually disappeared. Recently-more than four decades later-a single, faded carbon copy was discovered, apparently the only one still in existence. It is translated from German and presented here in book form, as its authors intended, for the first time.The book is divided into two parts. The first, the Main Report, formally presents the interview team's findings. It describes in detail the camp's history, how it was organized and functioned, who the prisoners were, how they lived, and how they were treated by their Nazi captors. This part of the report is based on the camp's own incriminating files and records as well as on information obtained from the prisoners.The second part, the Individual Reports, is the heart of the book. Here are the eyewitness accounts of the camp inmates, statements taken while they were still behind the same barbed wire that had held them for so many years. The prisoners relate events so recent, so painful, that they can only speak with strong emotions but often with great eloquence. The interview team had the foresight to take these accounts and organize them according to specific topics, for example forced labor, daily camp life, punishments, resistance, or SS guards. As a result, the book goes beyond simply a collection of individual stories, providing instead a well-rounded portrayal of every aspect of Buchenwald concentration camp from the prisoners' point of view. The Buchenwald Report is one of the most remarkable and important documents to emerge from the Holocaust and World War II. It is a deposition against the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, damning testimony provided by their intended victims in a final act of defiance. These are the voices of people courageous enough to tarry a while longer in hell, so that they could tell the world the truth at last. Perhaps they already sensed that, as Milan Kundera was to put it, "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." After fifty years, and too many lapses of memory, we know they were right.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Holocaust, World War II, War, Germany, European History

397 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

David A. Hackett is Associate Professor and former Chair of the History Department. He is editor and translator of The Buchenwald Report (Westview Press, 1995), which has been published in Germany as Der Buchenwald Report (Beck Verlag, 1996). He is currently completing a book titled Elusive Justice about war crimes trials of Buchenwald officers and guards, scheduled for publication next year. He teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on German History, Twentieth Century Europe, the Holocaust, and World War II. He received a BA from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and a MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, under a Fulbright grant and has returned to Germany several times for research under Fulbright and DAAD grants.

Reviews

[Sandra D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A seemingly endless saga of sadistic brutality and unrelenting horror, this was a tough one to get through.

I can't say I enjoyed this book but, for the fullest picture of the inner workings of a Nazi concentration camp, I don't think it could be beat, considering the circumstances under which it was written.

Buchenwald was not an extermination camp in the sense that Auschwitz was, although tens of thousands were murdered, starved, worked to death or driven to suicide there. The majority of inmates at this camp were not Jews; they were primarily political prisoners (antifascists), criminals, "antisocials," Gypsies, homosexuals, non-Jewish Poles and Russian prisoners of war.

The spirit and ingenuity of the inmates that emerged under such horrific conditions were awe-inspiring, from the myriad deceptions used to save lives to the subtle methods of sabotage that cut production at the armament works in the camp to almost nil.

Something else I found interesting: the inscription above the main gate at Buchenwald reads, "Recht oder Unrecht mein Vaterland." Or, in English, "My country, right or wrong."

[Christopher Snizik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because these accounts were written by prisoners who were still at the camp, their accounts are rich with details that I can only hope they were able to forget as they went on with their lives. While reading the report is not easy or pleasant, it gives insights into facets of the Holocaust that I had never heard before. Being sent to Buchenwald was actually not an automatic death sentence like the camp at Dachau was. But the inhumanity on display in Buchenwald, as in every camp, was beyond belief.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was difficult to read for two reasons. 1 - The first part of the book (the actual report) was written like a technical report. This made it hard to get into. I could only read a few pages at a time before I started falling asleep. 2 - The second part of the book were the personal accounts of the prisoners. Reading about the absolutely horrible things the SS soldiers did on a daily basis was soul crushing.

Overall I'm glad I read the book because I believe it's important to remember what happened during the Holocaust so that it never happens again.

[Michaelpatrick Keena · Rating 3 out of 5]

My dad was part of the GI advance team that liberated the camp.

[Danilo Lipisk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buchenwald and the other Nazi camps demonstrated how our species is capable of committing the most brutal and unspeakable acts against our fellow human beings. Nazism is the brightest proof of how perverse and perverted our species can be. When I finished the book, the feeling I had is that absolutely nothing in this world can predict the emergence of new waves of endless brutalities. History shows this. China in the 60's, Cambodia in the 70's, Rwanda 1994, Bosnia 1995, ISIS 2014... The Buchenwald Report is the report on our capacity for evil.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely astounding that it took half a century for this to be published in English. I mean I know why (rocket maaaannnnnn & the 3 mentions of the V-2 program affiliations with KZ Buchenwald) but still astounding nonetheless.

[Jennifer Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. As bad as I thought the holocaust was, I was not prepared for the first hand accounts. It’s important to all of humanity to read this.

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hackett is amazing. As a former UTEP graduate student of his, I can vouch for his incredible teaching methods and the soundness of his research. Luckily for the readers, these traits are both carried over into this text. My only regret is that I could not take more courses from him.

[Michael Selvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great summary of camp life: not for general consumption. Many personal statements and observations by prisoners of all countries. May be somewhat biased by politics of East German author, but it gives a great anti-fascist view.