The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them

by Eugen Kogon, Nikolaus Wachsmann (Introduction), Heinz Norden (Translation)

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The result is a unique historical document—a complete picture of the society, morality, and politics that fueled the systematic torture of six million human beings.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 Waschmann, a leading Holocaust scholar and author of Hilter's Prisons, this important work now demands to be re-read.

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

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Eugen Kogon (February 2, 1903 – December 24, 1987) was a historian and a survivor of the Holocaust. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, he was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration camp. Kogon was known in Germany as a journalist, sociologist, political scientist, author, and politician. He was considered one of the "intellectual fathers" of the Federal Republic of Germany and European integration in Germany.

Reviews

[Wulf Krueger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Der SS-Staat" von Eugen Kogon ist wahrscheinlich das erschütterndste Buch, das ich je gelesen habe. Es ist ein absolut außergewöhnlich detailliertes und eindringliches Werk, das einen tiefen Einblick in das Horror-Regime des nationalsozialistischen Deutschlands gewährt.

Kogon, der selbst sechs Jahre im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald gefangen gehalten wurde, beschreibt das System der Konzentrationslager in all seinen Schrecken und zeigt, wie die SS die Konzentrationslager als Instrument der Unterdrückung und Vernichtung einsetzte.

Eine der beeindruckendsten Eigenschaften des Buches ist seine Sachlichkeit: Kogon verzichtet darauf, in pathetischen Ausdrücken zu schreiben oder seine Meinung zu bestimmten Ereignissen kundzutun. Stattdessen lässt er die Fakten für sich sprechen, und genau das macht das Buch so erschütternd. Kogon dokumentiert die Gräueltaten der SS und stellt dabei auch ihre Ideologie und ihre Methoden dar. Das ganze Ausmaß des Grauens wird dadurch umso deutlicher, wenngleich auch für mich immer noch unbegreiflich.

Die Frage, wie ein solcher Zivilisationsbruch - noch dazu in dieser geradezu industrialisierten und unvorstellbaren Grausamkeit - überhaupt möglich war, wird mir jenseits der historisch gut untersuchten Faktenlage auf der menschlichen Ebene wohl für immer unbeantwortbar bleiben.

Kogon beginnt mit einer Einführung in das Konzentrationslagersystem und führt dann detailliert durch die verschiedenen Phasen des Lagerlebens, vom Eintritt bis zur (eher theoretischen) Entlassung oder zum Tod. Besonders beeindruckend ist Kogons Beschreibung der Lagerhierarchie und der verschiedenen Gruppen von Häftlingen, die in den Lagern untergebracht waren.

Insgesamt ist "Der SS-Staat" ein Buch, das jeder lesen sollte, um zu verstehen, wie das System der Konzentrationslager funktionierte und welch eigentlich unvorstellbare Verbrechen begangen wurden. Kogons Werk ist ein Meisterwerk der historischen Aufarbeitung, das die dunkelsten Kapitel der deutschen Geschichte transparent und zumindest intellektuell begreiflich macht.

Für mich persönlich war es eine überaus schmerzhafte, aber wichtige Leseerfahrung. Gerade als Deutsche tragen wir eine besondere Verantwortung, die Erinnerung an den Holocaust wach und präsent zu halten. Es ist wichtig, dass wir uns dieser historischen Verantwortung bewusst sind und uns immer wieder mit unserer Vergangenheit auseinandersetzen, um sicherzustellen, dass sich solche Verbrechen niemals wiederholen.


Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Mastodon | Instagram | Pinterest | Medium | Matrix | Tumblr

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most insightful book about the structure of German Concentration Camps I have read. It came highly recommended by the tour guide I had, when I visited Sachsenhausen - even though the book is about Buchenwald.
Some parts were difficult to read and it was quite emotional, but he gave such a matter-of-fact account of his time in the camp it made his book more than just a personal account of life inside the camp.
The chapters on 'the psychology of...' gave great insight into reasons behind people's actions. And reading about the interaction the author had with some of the other prisoners and the guards, like SS Major Ding-Schuler, really made this book a great read and has made me want to research further, in more depth about these people.
Really, it is a must read book for all history students and anyone interested in the second World War or history in general.

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eugen Kogon was a German writer, sociologist and Holocaust survivor. He was arrested several times by Gestapo for opposing the national socialist ideology and in 1939 he was deported to Buchenwald, the concentration camp situated near Weimar where he would spend six years.

Kogon wrote this book in 1946, as an examination and in-depth study of the Nazi concentration camp system under SS command. He objectively and completely, from several perspectives describes the organisation and hierarchy of these death camps as well as the appalling atrocities that were committed there. It is a harrowing but important book and to read it is to walk into the darkest, most troubling nightmare; we know that what he is describing was allowed to happen, and that millions of human-beings suffered and died in these camps.

The book reads much like court document, objective and formal, divided into chapters that deal with different subjects related to the concentration camps. At times, Kogon's own thoughts and observations are included which are quite interesting to read as he seems like a highly intelligent individual who put this book together in order for these atrocities not to be forgotten. There are also a few pages on statistics.

In his chapter on the psychology of the SS he discusses and sheds light on the question that seems to haunt all discussions on the Holocaust, how could these individuals commit these atrocious crimes and what was it that motivated them? It is most likely a combination of many factors such as a deeply ingrained inferiority complex which led to a hatred of those who were successful, whether that be intellectually or materialistically, a desire to humiliate and destroy those who stood up for themselves and possessed integrity but who were now reduced to mere prisoners. These guards were for the most part deeply unsuccessful and frustrated individuals who in the SS found a purpose and a mission where they were finally accepted and given the respect and power they thought they deserved.

The discussion on the collective guilt imposed on the German people is also interesting. Kogon claims that the strategy of promoting shame and guilt through publicity campaigns inherently failed to make the German people realize what had happened and to feel guilt for it. The aggressive way in which it was done made the people defensive, and unwilling to ransack themselves and their nation. Even if they were able to do so, they were often afraid to seek out information about the concentration camps because their previous ignorance would turn into guilt when enlightened.

Not an easy book to read because of the subject matter but very important nevertheless!

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father-in-law gave me this frightening book as a gift. To read it is to walk into the ultimate nightmare of mankind's inhumanity to man. Given in excruciating detail are the tortures, "medical" experiments, starvations, sickness, beatings & horrendous murders that made up the daily lives of the victims of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Eugene Kogon did not set out to write a sensationalist account in order to shock and inspire pity. He only wanted to tell what he experienced and exactly what he saw in the camp. And this is exactly the way the book comes across to the reader. It is almost like reading a court testimony. It is fascinating, harrowing, heart-wrenching and scary as hell. There are also moments that make the reader weep with wonder at the beauty of the human spirit: men who refused to betray their comrades under extreme torture even to death, people who voluntarily succumbed to torture & death in the place of loved ones and those who risked and gave their very lives to help complete strangers.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was an eighth grader when I read this book. It scared me then, as well as now. Then, when I was a Sophomore, it was required by my English class to read "Night" by Elie Wiesel. While sad, it could not equal how disturbing "The Theory and Practice of Hell" had. It was so dispassionate, so cold, so matter-of-fact that it made Wiesel's experience seem like nothing.
After we read "Night" the class, each student individually, entered a writing contest about the Holocaust. All of my fellow students, so far as I know, wrote about "Night." After two days of just sitting in the computer lab, I told my teacher that, "I can't write about this. I read something two years ago that blows this out of the water."
"The Theory and Practice of Hell" needs to be read by the modern generation. It is disturbing, a challenge to read, both because of the words used and the emotional impact. If you're thinking about reading it, do so. It will change how you think and it will make your life seem precious.

[Matt Glaviano · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book lying around after finishing In the Garden of Beasts, and thought that there was no time like the present to read it.

What was my motivation for reading a graphically detailed text about the mentality behind, and the day-to-day life in German concentration camps? There seem to be two groups – those who read it out of a sense of moral responsibility, and those who read it for, as the back cover puts it, “gruesome fascination.” I don’t think I quite fall into either camp. Maybe, if I’m to be honest, I fall equally in to both. Mostly, I just wanted facts to fill in vague notions. I wanted to know what I was picturing when I imagined concentration camps.

Sorry if that sounds naïve – but this book, more than any I have read, filled that vague void with concrete experience. What sets this book apart is Kogen’s tone. While he is generally extremely straight forward – considering the subject matter and the author’s personal experience, this isn’t surprising – what moved me about this book was the occasional ironic humor and moving sentiment that Kogen included. Factual, certainly; distant when necessary, yes; but to say it wasn’t emotional, perhaps even a cathartic document, wouldn’t be true. Kogen’s rhetorical flourish allows his book to be more than documentation.

Favorite quotes:
“We laughed, wretched souls that we were, lest we grow petrified and die.”

“Mental power – insight as well as resolution – is a quality of the individual, and unless it is integrated by leaders, it declines rather than grows with increasing numbers. In the mass the individual becomes a nothing. He feels no more sense of personal responsibility. He feels dissolved and sheltered a he follows the trend of the whole, even into the abyss. It requires altogether extraordinary personal qualifications to rise consciously above the drift of a mass."

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kogon's book is a clear analysis of his experiences at Buchenwald, detailing the lives of prisoners and SS soldiers, the psychology of the incarcerated and the incarcerator and the attempts at survival made possible by a certain unity between the victims. It gives numbers, dates, stats, but it also gives you the personal judgement of Kogon, who was a prisoner himself for six years. It is written with a steady hand, whilst never forgetting that it discusses a shaky subject. Definitely worth the read for anyone interested in the period of the 3rd Reich.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent first-person account (as well as third person analysis!)of the process of dehumanization and murder put into mass production in the Third Reich. All the reasons WWII should have been fought are here, as well as, all the reasons people ought to just give it up (war, exclusionism, and genocide)and get a life instead of thinking they can blink away an entire culture they disagree with. This book by Kogon, and Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning, are of the same nature.
Human dignity is something worth fighting for. You will well agree by the time you're done.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intimate telling of the operations and inter workings of German concentration camps written by a political prisoner that survived five and a half years at Buchenwald. A must read for anyone interested in WW2 and Holocaust history.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the arguments used by the deniers of the Holocaust, whether those who claim it didn't happen at all or those who hold the less radical but really no less peculiar position that Hitler was innocent of it, is the lack of a written order. In making this argument, they are using a logical fallacy, the one that is most trenchantly rebutted by the maxim Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. More specifically, though, they are, willfully or ignorantly, failing to understand a fundamental feature of Nazi existence, which one approaches from one side with Shulamit Volkov's observation that "Nazism was a spoken culture" (Volkov, "The Written Matter and the Spoken Word: On the Gap Between Pre-1914 and Nazi Anti-Semitism," Unanswered Questions 52) and from the other with this passage from Kogon:

The SS leadership expected obedience of its subordinates, but it also expected independence. [...] a curious mixture developed, compounded of a cult of obedience and a complete lack of control. In a sense the subordinate had to feel his way between these two attitudes. As a result he was reckoned the best SS member who "knew what had to be done," who did not wait for long-winded orders but acted "in the spirit of the Reich Leader SS."

For all their love of bureaucracy, the Nazis went to great lengths to avoid ever putting the truth in writing. Hence the endless euphemisms and Orwellian doublespeak, and hence the fact that, no, there probably never was a written order from Hitler to Himmler and Heydrich. No one involved either needed or wanted one.

And while I'm throwing out tangents, here's another one:

Much historians' sweat has been shed over the question of when Hitler (and Himmler and Heydrich) came up with the notion of killing all the Jews of Europe (in 1922? in 1933? in 1939? early in 1941? late in 1941?), and many arguments made about improvisation versus planning. To me, it seems pretty clear that from the beginning of his career as a demagogue, Hitler had a very clear idea that he wanted the Jews to GO AWAY. He didn't care how, and he didn't care what happened to them once they'd gone. He just wanted them OUT of Germany. (Hence the Nazi term Judenfrei, "free of Jews.") Dead was good, but so was absent. "Out of sight, out of mind," I think, was the operating principle, and a very clear (ideologically, mind you, not conceptually) division between Germany on the other hand and the entire rest of the world on the other. Thus the emphasis on emigration in the earlier parts of the Nazi regime, and the quite mad but apparently sincere plan to relocate the Jews to Madagascar. But Hitler's power grew and his megalomania ripened, and then a funny thing happened: "Germany" got bigger. And the bigger "Germany" got, the more Jews it encompassed (e.g., Poland). There was less space OUT of Germany, and moreover, Germany began to seem bigger and bigger, less accountable to the world OUTSIDE (which, of course, was controlled by Jews anyway and therefore suspect). And if absent is as good as dead, then dead is as good as absent. On an ideological level, there was no difference in Nazi thought between killing the Jews and deporting them. It was simply a matter of making them GO AWAY as cheaply and easily as possible. So Hitler's idea was there from the beginning; it was just a question of implementation (and epistemology, but I doubt that ever worried Hitler much). On the question of implementation, I think, yes, the gears switched somewhere in the middle of 1941, but I think part of the reason it's so hard to tell is that ideologically, there was hardly any switch at all. Eichmann and the rest of the bureaucratic system deported Jews and "deported" Jews with the same unblinking efficiency.

The Theory and Practice of Hell was written by an Austrian Catholic who survived Buchenwald from 1939 to the liberation of the camp in 1945. The book is based on the report he wrote for the Allies, explaining the system of concentration camps and extermination camps. It has the defects of its virtues: Kogon is clearly a child of his times, and you can see some of the same ideas about race and class and biology in his thinking that were distorted and exaggerated into monstrosity and genocide by the Nazis. But he is also doing his best to be clear, to explain. He doesn't try to write a hagiography of the prisoners, but instead does his best to explain the way the camp hierarchy and politics worked. And his book is a testament, not only to basic, brute survival (and reading it, you start to wonder how anyone, any single solitary human being, survived the concentration camps, much less survived for years on end), but to the survival of the things that make us more than brutes.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of the first books to try to explain the Holocaust as a total event to a mass audience, and it was appropriately written by a survivor, who had gone on to research the facts of the system he had suffered under. For a modern audience, there isn't a lot new here, and more recent research has corrected a lot of the data given, but there is a certain power in reading the words of someone who actually experienced the caps, so it remains in print and can be useful as a teaching tool.

Kogon was held at Buchenwald camp, which was a large camp mainly for political prisoners and "ordinary criminals" (although as he explains the camps were always composed of a deliberately mixed population) in the Western part of Germany. It was not an extermination camp, so had no gas chambers or other apparatus for mass killing, although of course many prisoners died there, and even a fair number were deliberately murdered by the SS, including a thousand or so Soviet POWs toward the end of the war. Buchenwald was also a center for human medical experimentation, which Kogon describes in grisly detail.

Kogon tried to give a complete picture of the "SS super state" and its running of the camps and the power it exerted outside the camps through terror partly based upon the camps as well. In this, he probably over-reached himself somewhat, although his perspective on the inefficiencies, errors, and arbitrariness of the system bears some similarity to current estimations. In general, however, his perspective is limited and appears to be at its best when he discusses something he directly witnessed. The details of Buchenwald are chilling and exact, whereas his information about the system overall is somewhat more theoretical and less convincing.

[Trae Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book a long time ago. I decided to read it over the summer. Not sure why? The whole thing was pretty gruesome, not for the faint of heart. The most interesting thing about the book, and something worth returning back to, is the psychology and characteristics of the SS. A brutal bunch, yes, but also a brutish bunch.

[Joshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sicherlich wurden viele Bücher über den Holocaust und die grausamen Zustände in den Konzentrationslagern geschrieben die doppelt so lang wie dieses Buch sind und gefüllt mit Zahlen und Fakten in einer fast schon steril wissenschaftlichen Art. Aber einen intimeren und den Geschehnissen näheren Bericht wird man so wohl kaum noch einmal finden, was wohl auch der traurigen und ernüchternden Tatsache zuzuschreiben ist das der Autor selbst seit 1939 im KZ Buchenwald inhaftiert war.
Inhaltlich ist der Bericht daher auch am detailreichsten wenn der Autor von Buchenwald und den Verhältnissen in Buchenwald berichtet, da die hier geschilderten Ereignisse und Zustände direkt seine eigenen Erfahrungen wiederspiegeln. Neben Buchenwald werden allerdings auch Berichte verschiedener Häftlinge aus anderen Lagern mit einbezogen und Kapitel verschiedenen "Sonderaktionen" der SS sowie sogar ein gesamtes Kapitel nur über die internen Machenschaften der SS Totenkopfverbände in den KZ gewidmet.

Was dieses Buch meiner Meinung nach so besonders macht ist das der Autor über eine Welt und Gesellschaft in den Konzentrationslagern schreiben kann die für moderne Historiker gar nicht mehr einsehbar ist, zumindest nicht im selben Maße. Er schreibt über die Hierarchien und Politik der Häftlinge, die kleinen Arten von Widerstand, welche Arbeitskommandos besonders schlimm waren und welche der SS-Männer besonders gefürchtet. Tatsächlich könnten einige der Beschreibungen der Totenkopfverbände sie als eine Truppe versoffener Idioten erscheinen lassen die ihre Stellung tagtäglich zur persönlichen Bereicherung nutzten (Hierzu schreibt der Autor das eine der einfachsten und sichersten Sabotagemethoden der Häftlinge darin bestand in den Werkstätten ganz einfach die Wünsche der SS zu erfüllen. Wo eigentlich Uniformen für die Wehrmacht hergestellt werden sollten wurde dann eben Wochen an maßgeschneiderten Anzügen gearbeitet) und diese Beschreibung wäre wohl auch komplett zutreffend, leider bedeutet das aber nicht das sie für weniger Tote verantwortlich wären. Er schreibt außerdem über die Möglichkeiten der Häftlinge zum Selbstschutz und völlig ungeschönt auch über die durch und durch barbarischen Strafen die von der SS für die kleinsten Vergehen (wenn die Bestraften denn überhaupt irgendetwas "verbrochen" hatten) ausgeteilt wurden. Und Kogon beschreibt noch unzählige weitere Aspekte die hier unmöglich ganz aufgezählt werden können.

Es ist ein durch und durch interessantes Werk aber auf keinen Fall ein Buch das man an einem Tag oder sogar einer Woche durchlesen könnte. Oftmals liest man Dinge die einen noch länger weiterbeschäftigen und die erstmal verarbeitet werden müssen. "Der SS-Staat" stellt offen den wohl schlimmsten Anfall menschlicher Barbarei dar und zeigt sowohl den schrecklichsten Abgrund der menschlichen Psyche als auch die Reaktion derer die unter ihm Leiden müssen. Und letztendlich widmet Eugen Kogon auch denen ein Kapitel die den Terror mehr oder weniger stillschweigend geduldet haben.

[Lars Wachsmuth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein wirklich gutes Buch, aber wahrlich keine leichte Lesekost. Zum Einen merkt man Kogon seinen geisteswissenschaftlichen Hintergrund zuweilen deutlich an, zum Anderen ist natürlich das Thema des Buches selbst ziemlich schwerer Stoff. Der Autor berichtet strukturell und beispielhaft-anekdotisch über System und Verhältnisse der deutschen Konzentrationslager und diese Wahrheiten und Details sind oft genug schwer zu ertragen. Sollte man aber gelesen haben!

[Erin Wanek]

Content in the last chapter resonates- I find a lot of the books written during this time period have a similar message but without fail I find myself saying “wow” each time I read something like this:

“This is how the situation appears to me at the outset of the year 1949: were Hitler to return, many would follow him anew-though with a somewhat worse conscience. The National Socialists would be far more radical and ruthless, quite unwilling this time to leave even a single enemy alive. They would have plenty of effective propaganda material against both east and west. The oppositional minority would be stronger and more resolute. There would be an immediate life-and-death struggle, with deeds of bloody violence and mounting assassinations. More young people would be on the side of the opposition-young people who have not yet come to know freedom but who loathe dictatorships, who are too idealistic to obey blindly, and who reject any form of sacrifice for obscure aims…. Confronting the sinister facts of the present that seem to outweigh by far the forces of the future… they do not feel that the execrated past was quite so bad as it is represented—and as it actually was. The system of the SS state must be recognized for what it was, so that any spread of the GPU state may be combated, so that any resurgence in our midst, whether by our aid or because of our silence, may be prevented. With all the present knowledge at our command, there is no excuse left for anyone-inside Germany and out.”

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Translated from the German by Heinz Norman.



Opening: Late in the fall of 1937, in Frankfurt, Í had occasion for an extended discussion with a leading SS man from Vogelsang Castle - a discussion that continued over several afternoons.

Lots of pencil underlinings and margin comments in my copy.

paper
nazi
holocaust
autumn 2012


The translation leaves things amibiguous at many a crucial moment [insert the early Heydrik motto as example]. That aside, this is a straight-forward guide to which dept was which and the in-fighting between them, followed by a full blueprint of the killing factories. All the stastics seem to be included in chilling detail.

Taking this in snatches, the same MO as with Gulag Archipelago, as I don't want the ideas here to be the ones to fall asleep on.

As with other books dealing with atrocities, this will be left unrated by yours truly.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this book unique in the literature of the Holocaust is it's proximity in time to the actual events. When the US Army liberated Buchenwald in 1945, they asked a group of surviving inmates to draft a report for the military about what had happened in the camp. Eugene Kogon (a political prisoner since 1939) led the effort, and this is the result. It is written in the tone of a coroner's report dissecting the remains of a murder victim. It is one of the most horrifying books I have ever read.

[Tom Sen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich hatte dieses Buch im Frühjahr beim Besuch der Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen gekauft und bin froh, dass ich es getan habe.

Unglaublich detailliert beschreibt Eugen Kogon nicht nur das gesamte System der Konzentrationslager, sondern auch seine eigenen Erfahrungen und Augenzeugenberichte aus dem KZ Buchenwald im Besonderen. Bereits 1946 veröffentlicht, ist dieses Buch mit Recht weiterhin das Standardwerk zum Thema.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this one when I was stationed in (the old) West Germany. I wanted to understand how the Holocaust was carried out after visiting Dachau. This book painted a clear picture of a technologically advanced nation putting its knowledge to work in the service of evil. I loaned the book out and never asked for it back because it was so disturbing. Still is.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not one of the better books about the holocaust. I found it difficult to follow. I knew this wasn't going to be a survivor story, and I thought I would really like it, but I didn't. The author talks about the nazis and their system of the camps. I had a hard time understanding some parts and some parts had way too much politics (which I have no interest in).

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often horrifying history of the holocaust that charts the rise of Heinrich Himmler and the SA/SS, and focuses on the Buchenwald camp. The title is a fair indication that the book is not for the faint of heart.

[Mike Janes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chillingly matter-of-fact. Not for the feint of heart.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PRISONER DESCRIBES THE METHODOLOGY OF THE CAMPS IN DETAIL

The Publisher’s Introduction to this 1950 book explains, “Dr. Eugen Kogon was born on February 2, 1903, in Munich… Until early 1934 he lived in Austria… [He] engage[d] in intensive anti-Nazi activities, in the course of which he was twice arrested for brief periods in 1937. Immediately after the Germans marched into Austria … [in] 1938, he was finally arrested as one of the first opponents of the regime… he spent eighteen months as a prisoner of the Gestapo… In September 1939, he was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp… On June 6, 1943, Kogon voluntarily and with the approval of his comrades assumed the position of … ‘First Medical Clerk’… under SS Major Ding-Schuler, who was… chief of the laboratory where human experiments were conducted… Following Buchenwald’s liberation [in 1945]… Dr. Kogon settled, after seven years in prison camp… with his wife, his two sons and his daughter.” (Pg. ix-x)

Kogon wrote in the first chapter, “[Heinrich Himmler] had risen from the ranks of the … German youth movement… this man was to become the disciple, the henchman and finally the most dogged protagonist of Adolf Hitler’s obsessions… he was certainly not the prototype of the nonexistent… ‘Teutonic race.’ None of the principal Nazi leaders were… not, especially, their lord and master himself, Adolf Hitler… of whom his one-time press agent… once told foreign correspondents that at least the hairs in his armpits were fair.” (Pg. 3)

He outlines, “[Germany] was a state made up of four groups. There were, first of all, those who were to rule .. [like] Oriental satraps. There were those whose task was to fight and die for the system, under the guise of lofty ideals. A third group had the administrative service for its sphere… Ordinary work was reserved for a fourth group---the broad masses of the German people, until they too were permitted to move up into the role of domesticated overlords of subjected enemy peoples. The last group consisted of the millions of resisters and ‘inferior races.’ For them there was death---swift death, or painful, lingering liquidation. Above the whole structure loomed Hitler, remote and beyond reach, the personification of the race myth some day to be actually worshipped.” (Pg. 16-17)

He explains, “Himmler did invent the concentration camps, though it was Heydrich who reorganized them along uniform lines. It was the SS that gave them their ultimate character as the most fiendish chapter in Germany’s history. Their main purpose was the elimination of every trace of actual or potential opposition to Nazi rule. Segregation, debasement, humiliation, extermination---these were the effective forms of the terror. Any concept of justice was put aside. Better to put ten innocents behind barbed wire than to let one real enemy escape. This policy, of course, resulted in the desired deterrent effect on the ninety per cent who were innocent.” (Pg. 19-20)

He notes, “in another excess of ‘idealism,’ Himmler and the SD used the concentration camps for large-scale scientific experimentation, supposedly for the benefit of mankind. Why should not creatures, doomed in any event, first be utilized for scientific knowledge?... Here ‘criminals’ were available by the tens of thousands. And working conditions were ideal. ‘Humanitarian sentimentality’ was rigorously excluded… There was no problem about the consent of the subjects. What more could the SS physician… desire?” (Pg. 21-22)

He states, “from September 1939 to about the spring of 1940… [the] food situation was disastrous. Malnutrition threatened to become famine. This situation recurred toward the end of the war… intensified by unimaginable overcrowding that brought another trail of epidemics… This sequence must be borne in mind when reading of general conditions in the camps… far below the ‘normal’ level in the initial camp phase; relatively stable in the ensuing years; near-disastrous in the first six months of the war; relative improvement during the war years… outright disintegration in the final four to eight months.” (Pg. 26-27)

He reports, “The number of clergymen sent to the concentration camps … [was] between 4,000 and 5,500… There were far more Catholics than Protestants, and the latter were almost all ministers of the Confessional Church. All of them had a very difficult time of it… Bishops, abbots and other ecclesiastics… were imprisoned in German concentration camps without distinction… The greatest wave of arrests of [Jehovah’s] Witnesses began in the spring of 1936…” (Pg. 31-32)

He points out, “After about 1941 the ‘standard atrocities’… were to a large extent slowed down in the base camps. The admission of newcomers took place under tolerable conditions. Bath-house, delousing dip and the various processing rooms functioned fairly well… there was in general far less beating and kicking. The camps were still way stations of human degradation, but they lost those shameless and exquisite torments that had long characterized them… These changes do not by any means imply that the concentration camps were transformed into rest homes! Far from it.” (Pg. 70) Later, he adds, “Some of the work in camp … was utterly senseless, intended as a form of torture, a diversion engaged in by the SS ‘for fun.’ The Jews… often had to build walls, only to tear them down the next day, rebuild them again, and so on.” (Pg. 87)

He recounts, “In the summer of 1945 Himmler issued a ‘Reich Directive’ to the effect that brothels… were to be established in the concentration camps. Eighteen to twenty-four girls were shipped from the women’s concentration camp in Ravensbrück to each camp where a brothel was established… The purpose pursued by the SS was the corruption of political prisoners, who were given precedence… Men with good sources of supply … were able to spend hours in this form of ‘recreation’ when they wished. Among the thousands of pitiful wraiths forever hovering on the borderline between life and death, there were still plenty of these braggarts, provocatively regaling their fellows with tales of their prowess the previous night.” (Pg. 135-136)

He explains, “there was a camp band… The prisoners had to pay for the instruments themselves. Members of the band worked by day in the lumberyard or the carpentry shop, rehearsing only after hours… It was ghastly to watch and hear the Gypsies strike up their merry marches while exhausted prisoners carried their dead and dying comrades into camp; or to listen to the music accompanying the whipping of the prisoners.” (Pg. 136-137)

Of the ‘medical’ experiments, he comments, “some 450 persons … were infected with highly virulent fresh blood from typhus patients… The scientific value of these tests was either nil or else of but insignificant proportions, because the method of infection bordered on lunacy… Infection was … effected simply by injecting intravenously … of highly virulent blood from a typhus patient. Naturally the effect smashed through all immunization measures, resulting disastrously in nearly every case.’ (Pg. 157)

He recounts, “I am not exaggerating when I say that a separate book would have to be written on the concentration-camp prisons, called ‘Bunker.’ It would be a blood-curdling collection of documents … They ranged from the ‘dog cells’ at Dachau where the prisoners could only lie huddled on the side and had to bark for their food when it was passed to them; to unlighted solitary cells where German intellectuals were kept until they went almost blind; to the stand-up cells… barely large enough to hold a man in upright position.” (Pg. 231)

He reports, “The gas chambers were simplicity itself, yet they were planned with diabolical ingenuity. Each chamber had the appearance of a public bath, and was to be represented to the victims… hydrocyanic acid gas was admitted through the shower heads and ventilator outlets as soon as the doors had been closed. Death took as long as four or five minutes… During this time the most dreadful screams could be heard… The bodies were then stacked in piles of ten each… The chief victims of Auschwitz were Jews from all the countries of Europe that had come under Hitler’s rule.” (Pg. 239-240)

He observes, “The morale of most of the prisoners might have been buttressed by some form of religious observance to a far greater extent than by … occasional celebrations… it is appropriate … to mention the utter lack of any religious work in the concentration camps. Naturally the SS permitted nothing of the kind…There can be no question but that the mere rudiments of spiritual care, especially among the Poles, could have prevented much moral disintegration, much brutality, much unhappiness… By and large religious work in the camps was without practical significance.” (Pg. 271-272)

He suggests, “unquestionably it was the pursuit of power that impelled men like Himmler, Heydrich… in creating their system and in maintaining it. These men sought only power---power over other men, other institutions, over Germany, over other nations, if possible over the world and the future. All was to go according to their will.” (Pg. 301)

He concludes, “This is how the situation appears to me at the outset of the year 1949: Were Hitler to return, many would follow him anew---through with a somewhat worse conscience. The National Socialists would be far more radical and ruthless---quite unwilling, this time, to leave even a single enemy alive… There would be an immediate life-and-death struggle, with deeds of bloody violence and mounting assassinations. More young people would be on the side of the opposition… who loathe dictatorship, who are too idealistic to obey blindly, and who reject any form of sacrifice for obscure aims.” (Pg. 325-326) He adds, “The time is not far distant when it will become clear whether Europe will follow the path toward freedom or toward slavery.” (Pg. 333)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone studying the Nazi camps.

[Clay Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Theory and Practice of Hell" by Eugen Kogon is a seminal work that provides a detailed and harrowing account of life inside a Nazi concentration camp. Kogon himself was a prisoner at Buchenwald from 1939 until the camp's liberation in 1945. His book is not just a memoir; it is a methodical and systematic description of the structure and workings of the concentration camps, and it represents an important contribution to Holocaust literature.

Kogon's writing is clinical and precise, which can be partly attributed to his background as a sociologist. He meticulously details the organization of the camps, including the hierarchy among prisoners, the role of the SS, the labor and economic aspects of camp operation, and the various means of torture and extermination employed. He does not shy away from describing the brutalities and atrocities that were everyday occurrences in the camps, yet he does so with a dispassionate tone that underscores the systemic nature of the terror.

The book is divided into several sections, each examining a different aspect of camp life. Kogon discusses the types of prisoners held in the camps, the categories of crimes, the food and living conditions, the sanitary conditions, the work assignments, the punishments, the psychological impact on the inmates, and the strategies for survival. He also examines the economic exploitation of the camps by the Nazi regime, showing how the forced labor system contributed to the war effort.

One of the most striking aspects of Kogon’s book is his analysis of the social dynamics within the camp. He illuminates how the Nazi system of divide and conquer turned prisoners against each other, creating a microcosm of society with its own social classes, norms, and power structures. Kogon's insights into the human condition and the behavior of individuals under extreme stress are particularly poignant.

The significance of "The Theory and Practice of Hell" lies not only in its detailed account of the inner workings of the concentration camps but also in its attempt to understand the broader implications of the camps on human nature, ethics, and civilization. Kogon argues that the camps were not an aberration but rather the logical conclusion of a totalitarian system that valued ideology over humanity. His analysis warns of the dangers of unchecked power and the need for vigilance to prevent such atrocities from happening again.

In terms of criticism, some readers might find the book's detailed accounts and analytical approach to be emotionally distant, potentially making it difficult to connect with the personal suffering of the individuals. However, this objectivity is also what allows Kogon to deliver a comprehensive examination of the camps without becoming mired in the emotional weight of the subject matter.

In summary, "The Theory and Practice of Hell" is a powerful, important, and sobering examination of the Nazi concentration camps from a survivor and scholar. It is a book that should be read by those interested in the history of the Holocaust, the study of totalitarian regimes, and the depths and capacities of human nature in the face of unspeakable evil.

[Edward Janes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing "The Theory and Practice Of Hell; The German Concentration Camps And The System Behind Them" by Eugen Kogon (1950: 343 pages). Kogon, a devout Catholic, was at one-time a member of the Nazi party with thoughts of compatability between an authoritarian Catholic order and Nazism. He quickly came to realize his error and rejected the new German order. By 1934 he supported the opposition and in 1938 Kogon was arrested as troops marched into Austria where he was quickly arrested. He would spend years in concentration camps, mostly Buchenwald. Upon liberation he wrote a 125 page report for the Americans detailing the atrocities he witnessed; this report was the basis for this book.

From the back cover: "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 a state, and a society without law. Kogon knew that the book would shock some readers and provide others with gruesome fascination. But he firmly believed that he had to shoe the camp in honest, unflinching detail.... For many years, The Theory and Practice of Hell remained the seminal work on Concentration camps, particularly in Germany. "

A book without citations leaves the reader challenged to pursue further study on material of particular interest. Just the same many accounts by Kogon are similar to the one below from page 224 that caught this reader's attention:

"Special programs directed against pregnant women were carried out in the concentration camps as a result of general directives. Whenever women prisoners in outside labor details showed signs of pregnancy, they were shipped to Auschwitz if they were Jewish, otherwise to Ravensbruk. They were told these camps had suitable maternity wards and nursery schools.

The following incident shows just what these nursery schools were. A Dutch physician who was Jewish had a non Jewish wife, and the couple had a five year old girl. He was scheduled for shipment to Auschwitz... Entirely ignorant of the implications, he asked whether his wife and child might accompany him. The SS gleefully assented, praising the "nursery school" that was supposed to be available at Auschwitz. The wife immediately agreed to go and actually departed with her child ahead of the husband. When the doctor reached Auschwitz, his first act was to inquire for the women's home and nursery school. With satanic laughter, the SS men pointed to the gas chambers. Wife and child were already dead. The husband himself perished within a few days."

[L.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noo wreszcie przeczytałem tą cegłę! Znaczy "cegła" nie w negatywnym sensie, bo to dobra książka, tylko że... czy naprawdę musi mieć 600 stron i takie wymiary? Rzadko czepiam się rzeczy takich jak wydanie, ale miałem tą książkę w ręce w wydaniu niemieckim - była normalna i miała "zwyczajne" wymiary... i w sumie mogłem ją jednak po niemiecku przeczytać, ale pomyślałem, że jak polska wersja jest taka tania, to sobie kupię, bo mnie wtedy jeszcze przerażało przeczytanie choćby tych trochę ponad 300 stron po niemiecku ;) A jednak mogłem i pewnie o wiele przyjemniej by mi się ją nosiło, a tak to się trochę umęczyłem (ona mi się nie mieściła w torbie pracowej! musiałem nosić pod pachą :D ), i nie - naprawdę sądzę, że czcionka spokojnie mogła być mniejsza i akapity mniejsze.

Ale książka jest oczywiście interesując i dobra, chociaż na początku trochę utknąłem i przez pierwsze rozdziały ciężko było mi przebrnąć. Są wprawdzie takie fragmenciki, co do których wydaje mi się, że autor się myli, ale to drobne sprawy, więc można pominąć. Takie dobre, obszerne, rzeczowe zebranie wiadomości z punktu widzenia funkcjonowania SS i obozów koncentracyjnych. A dodatkowo napisane dosyć "lekkim" językiem, w sensie zrozumiałym i przystępnym, a nawet są fragmenty powiedzmy... może nie zabawne ale celnie ironiczne, np.:

"SS-Scharführerzy, zwłaszcza w pierwszych latach istnienia każdego obozu koncentracyjnego, wykorzystywali z reguły pierwsze przesłuchanie do najdzikszych ekscesów. (...) Atmosfera tych pierwszych przesłuchań jest trudna do opisania. Oto jeden z wielu przykładów: Trwa wypełnianie rubryki "Rodzice". Pięciu SS-Scharführerów siedząc w jednym pokoju, przez cały czas pokrzykuje coś do siebie, stukając na maszynach do pisania. Pytanie siedzącego przy maszynie SS-Scharführera do stojącego przed nim na baczność więźnia: "Jaka dziwka wysrała cię na świat?". Biedak nie zrozumiał pytania, bo nigdy nie spotkał się z tego typu zachowaniem wyższej rasy panów."

Żeby było zabawniej, dalej:

"Po wielu wrzaskach i ciosach pałką okazało się, że był jednym z sześciorga rodzeństwa, których matka otrzymała od Adolfa Hitlera Mutterkreuz in Gold (Złoty Krzyż Matki)."

Dla kogoś, kto czytał dużo o tej tematyce, nie będzie może wybitnie odkrywczych rzeczy w tej książce, ale jest dobrym i przystępnym opracowaniem.

(czytana: 4-21.07.2022)
4,5/5 (8/10)

[Travis De Jong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for learning about the life and politics of concentration camps. Kogon doesn't spare the reader, providing detailed, horrifying descriptions of the atrocities of the camp. This makes the book a little hard to read (I had to take some breaks myself) but gives you a realistic idea of life inside the camp. Before I go any further I wanna say that I know the Holocaust is a sensitive topic and I'm going to try and walk on egg shells here but I'm sorry if I say something wrong.

With that being said, this book was fukcing nuts. Like in high school we did one unit on the Holocaust which involved watching "Schindler's List" and looking at images of survivors. That's it! Like obviously we learned about the gas chambers and how awful concentration camps were but I really had no idea how awful it truly was. Kogan did a great job of presenting all the details of the camps and I really enjoyed learning about the politics of the camps themselves. I also found it interesting learning about the psychology of the inmates and the workers and would love a book recommendation that dives a little deeper into that topic if anyone has one.

I also want to give appreciation for Kogon and his courage to write a book like this. I also want to thank him for opening my mind up to the second world war and it's events. I've never really read about the Holocaust and I'm a little ashamed to say that I never really thought about it. Whenever I read biographies spanning the second world war, it's usually mentioned briefly and then not at all after the end of the war. I've never really thought about what it meant to live through a life changing experience like that only to be tossed back into normal life. Like how did survivors adjust back and how did affect their lives and the society that they returned to?

Okay I think that about sums this review up but I promise I'll be returning to this topic with a book in the near future. Also I probably said something wrong or inappropriate and just wanted to add the disclaimer that I'm an idiiot sooo yea.

[Sapna Bisht · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book has been written by a survivor of The Holocaust, but It is not just a survivor story. Evidently Kogon’s historian, political scientist, sociologist image is dominant in the book over his survivor self.
The book has been very neatly categorized, starting from the formation of the concentration camps, their motive, infrastructure, running, life of the prisoners-SS to their evacuation and liberation. Even the subjects like food, discipline has an entire chapter dedicated to them. One is bound to find many surprising discoveries related to the concentration camps. For me it was the fact that there were print shops, binderies, sculpting shops inside where the prisoners used to work. The book in itself is a textbook which will give a real good idea of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany for someone who is learning about them for the first time.
The author did a notable job in portraying the sadistic nature of most of the SS by mentioning events like “…when there was a serious food shortage in camp, the bears, monkeys and birds got a daily ration of meat abstracted from the prisoners’ mess. The bears also received honey and jam, the monkeys mashed potatoes with milk, oat flakes, zwieback and white bread….” .
The book did get a little too political in the beginning when it talked about the formation of the camps and purpose behind it and a little too psychological in the end, which some readers might find a bit slow.
But overall I would say that it is a good read, not fascinating but intellectual.

[Les Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugene Kogan wrote one of the most internationally acclaimed accounts of life in the Nazi concentration camps which was a best-seller in a time when sensational accounts proliferated.
What the Gestapo and the SS termed "protective custody" was really nothing more than a living Hell of daily degradation, deprivation and grueling slave labor accompanied with regular beatings, whippings and other forms of torture. This book offers the glimpse of a life that is difficult to reconcile with our understanding of the modern, civilized world.
Nazi doctors conducted all manner of experiments in obedience to the directives of Himmler. Some of the objectives included improved sterilization methods, "cures" for homosexuality, typhus and yellow fever, bone, muscle and tissue transplant experiments. as well as cold tolerance testing and testing for the effectiveness of various killing methods.
Among the "concentrationaries", underground organizations were developed to facilitate communication and exploit opportunities to improve the chances of survival.
As the allies closed in, a great deal was done to prepare for the inevitable collapse of the Nazi regime in terms of anticipation for whatever desperate "last gasp" move the enemy might make.
A well documented and objective account by someone who was incarcerated at Buchenwald but was in a position as clerk to witness and chronicle events as they occurred.

[Luise Heide · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meine Meinung zum Cover:
Ich finde das Cover sehr gut gewählt zum Klappentext. Es zeigt den Eingang vom Konzentrationslager Buchenwald.
Meine Meinung zum Buch:
Ich bin mir sehr sicher das dieses Buch sehr interessant ist, schon alleine, weil man ein Einblick erhält, wie es frühe wirklich war in diesen Lagern. Ich persönlich konnte aber leider dieses Buch nicht weiter lesen, da die Schrift zu klein ist und ich nach etwa eins bis zwei Seiten Kopfschmerzen und tränende Augen bekam. Somit kann ich leider auch nicht bewerten wie der Schreibstil vom Autor ist. Eigentlich schade da es mich sehr interessierte. Ich kenne persönlich das Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen. Dort war ich gewesen um mal ein Einblick zu bekommen. Und ich muss gestehen was man da sieht und liest, ist echt erschreckend gewesen.
Mein Fazit:

Durch die sehr kleine Schrift ist es für mich leider nicht richtig lesbar. Eins bis zwei Seiten habe ich immer mal geschafft dann bekam ich Kopfschmerzen und tränende Augen. Und ich war so interessiert an dem Buch, wie es früher wirklich war im Konzentrationslager. Ich kenne eins in Sachsenhausen. 
Ich vergebe 1 von 5 Sterne