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Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness
Describes the Nazi death camps in Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, traces the history of anti-Semitism, and traces the history of Hitlers Final Solution.
547 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 28, 2013
Imagine a nightmare you can't awake from, this was the reality for millions of people, and the "monsters" in the nightmare were some of our kind. Interestingly millions of others thought like the Nazis, but the Nazis were the ones who acted out the thoughts of others. We must remember that these people were created by the same source that created us. They were allowed to live to fulfill their objective, and on this note we must perpetually wonder why.
The Nazis took the culture of thanatology to a new level. There were the book covers, and lamp shades made from human skin. There was the furniture made from the bones of the recently killed, as well as soap made from the prisoner's skin for resell. This culture of death pervaded most concentration camps, but reached a peak at Belsen where these items were found. The author goes into detail as to how ordinary people became ordinary agents of death. Dr Fieg offers a chronological history of how the medical profession became the tools of the Nazis when it came to the killing of millions. It was the doctors who directly monitored, and administered the means of destruction. The doctors started out killing the severely ill and mentally infirmed as part of the T4 program. From there it was a slippery slope to killing enemies of the state who did not have the right mindset, which the Nazis saw as a mental illness. From the T4 program, Dr Fieg outlines the next attempt at mass killings, and that was to try to blow up the condemned, but this proved to be too messy, as did large scale shootings. Then there was the problem of body/evidence disposal. From these diabolical beginnings the first true killing centers were conceived, these were, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek. It was at these killing centers that the learning curved was transcended, and the wholesale slaughter of millions began to reach its stride.
Dr Fieg does a good job in listing all the step involved in going from the concept of killing millions, to its actualization. As can be expected, there is a tinge of a personal bias when it comes to elucidating such a subject. A few examples are given as to who some of the insidious perpetrators were before the war, they were pastors, college professors, police chiefs, ministers, store owners, and a large number of the general proletariat of the pre Nazis society. With these concepts in mind, Ms Feig describes the transition from sanity to madness, and how both co existed with just the right balance. Paradoxically, as the perpetrator's souls descended in degradation, their position ascended in the Nazi party. A good example of the author's reporting has to do with her description of the bureaucracy of cruelty. It was an unspoken rule of the administration of the camps to abused the inmates, especially the Jews. If a guard was seen as having a sense of morality and empathy, they were admonished or reassigned. By this process of elimination only the most sadistic elements remained. It is this type of documentation that makes this book a good source for researching the psychology of the different facilities. The various tools, mental and physical come to life, and one is lead methodically to their combined achievement.
Another notable trait of her presentation was the eyewitness accounts of some of the incidents that took place at the various camps. One particularly diabolical incident, was described as an mad ax orgy. A train with 2100 woman and children came into the Natzweiler concentration camp. Waiting to receive them were about 200 prisoner guards. Once the people were unloaded, the mass killings began. The woman & children were hacked, bludgeon, stabbed, stomped, and gouged to death in a span of less than 1/2 hour. No known horror movie could ever come close to capturing the bestial depravity of these factual events. There are a number of such eyewitness accounts throughout the book, and at times I had to put the book down to restore my faith. The text is very difficult to read because of the details of such descriptions, and there are many. The author stated that this was necessary to allow the reader to gain a truer assessment of the events. The style and order of information in the book allows the reader to be taken from a world before the holocaust, to a world after. Subtle personal assessment are made, in addition to overt luminary evaluations. I thought the author did an excellent job of documenting a subject that most people find repulsive and spiritually draining. If you are a beginner in your studies of the holocaust, or a life long scholar, this text delivers to the satisfaction of both.
The Nazis took the culture of thanatology to a new level. There were the book covers, and lamp shades made from human skin. There was the furniture made from the bones of the recently killed, as well as soap made from the prisoner's skin for resell. This culture of death pervaded most concentration camps, but reached a peak at Belsen where these items were found. The author goes into detail as to how ordinary people became ordinary agents of death. Dr Fieg offers a chronological history of how the medical profession became the tools of the Nazis when it came to the killing of millions. It was the doctors who directly monitored, and administered the means of destruction. The doctors started out killing the severely ill and mentally infirmed as part of the T4 program. From there it was a slippery slope to killing enemies of the state who did not have the right mindset, which the Nazis saw as a mental illness. From the T4 program, Dr Fieg outlines the next attempt at mass killings, and that was to try to blow up the condemned, but this proved to be too messy, as did large scale shootings. Then there was the problem of body/evidence disposal. From these diabolical beginnings the first true killing centers were conceived, these were, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek. It was at these killing centers that the learning curved was transcended, and the wholesale slaughter of millions began to reach its stride.
Dr Fieg does a good job in listing all the step involved in going from the concept of killing millions, to its actualization. As can be expected, there is a tinge of a personal bias when it comes to elucidating such a subject. A few examples are given as to who some of the insidious perpetrators were before the war, they were pastors, college professors, police chiefs, ministers, store owners, and a large number of the general proletariat of the pre Nazis society. With these concepts in mind, Ms Feig describes the transition from sanity to madness, and how both co existed with just the right balance. Paradoxically, as the perpetrator's souls descended in degradation, their position ascended in the Nazi party. A good example of the author's reporting has to do with her description of the bureaucracy of cruelty. It was an unspoken rule of the administration of the camps to abused the inmates, especially the Jews. If a guard was seen as having a sense of morality and empathy, they were admonished or reassigned. By this process of elimination only the most sadistic elements remained. It is this type of documentation that makes this book a good source for researching the psychology of the different facilities. The various tools, mental and physical come to life, and one is lead methodically to their combined achievement.
Another notable trait of her presentation was the eyewitness accounts of some of the incidents that took place at the various camps. One particularly diabolical incident, was described as an mad ax orgy. A train with 2100 woman and children came into the Natzweiler concentration camp. Waiting to receive them were about 200 prisoner guards. Once the people were unloaded, the mass killings began. The woman & children were hacked, bludgeon, stabbed, stomped, and gouged to death in a span of less than 1/2 hour. No known horror movie could ever come close to capturing the bestial depravity of these factual events. There are a number of such eyewitness accounts throughout the book, and at times I had to put the book down to restore my faith. The text is very difficult to read because of the details of such descriptions, and there are many. The author stated that this was necessary to allow the reader to gain a truer assessment of the events. The style and order of information in the book allows the reader to be taken from a world before the holocaust, to a world after. Subtle personal assessment are made, in addition to overt luminary evaluations. I thought the author did an excellent job of documenting a subject that most people find repulsive and spiritually draining. If you are a beginner in your studies of the holocaust, or a life long scholar, this text delivers to the satisfaction of both.
January 13, 2011
I'm mixed on this book. The author is supposedly a professor at a college, but "Hitler's Death Camps" does not feel like a scholarly work. There's a lot of emotionally manipulative language that started making me question the conclusions she reaches. (Note that I'm not questioning the existence of the camps or of the Holocaust! Merely Feig's views on it.) Also, she has a bizarre obsession with the artwork and memorials that have been set up at the former camps. That analysis and description belongs in a different book.
April 30, 2015
I read this for my Master's thesis on Nazi camps. It is very helpful in giving the information about each of the camps, its location, its set up, what happened there, and the basics of camp life and death. The hardest thing to read was about the Jewish women who had babies in camps. The midwives would deliver the babies, drown them in a barrel of cold water (in front of the mothers), then slam them against the wall and leave them for large rats to eat. I'll be having nightmares about this the rest of my life.
April 22, 2015
Top notch nonfiction about Hitler's death camps. I read this for my master's thesis and learned more than I ever thought I would know about the camps.
December 19, 2023
I FINALLY FINISHED!!!! 😭
but anyway, everybody ever should read this
but anyway, everybody ever should read this
January 8, 2016
This book is too long. She distracts herself and delves into irrelevancies. She also is repetitive. The title is misleading. She covers most of the concentration camps, not just the 6 death camps. At the end she becomes philosophic and tries unsuccessfully to answer the obvious questions.
That said, there is a lot of historical detail and good facts in this book. I learnt a lot from reading it. I did not however feel for the inmates as I have in other books I have read on the subject.
That said, there is a lot of historical detail and good facts in this book. I learnt a lot from reading it. I did not however feel for the inmates as I have in other books I have read on the subject.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews