Language:
English
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Central European History
Angaben zur Quelle:
30,2 (1997) 253-294
Keywords:
Nazi concentration camps
;
National socialism Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Disagreeing with historians (e.g. Arendt, Huettenberger) who tend to regard the middle-level SS staff of the concentration camps as mere "cogs" in the extermination machinery, states that the middle managers who ran the camp industry were motivated by a passionate ideology and had a free hand to implement it. Examines the "extermination through work" system. Forced labor was used in the camps from the very beginning, but its primary goal was punishment. The productivization of the camps began in 1942, with Pohl's consolidation of the WVHA. The extermination of prisoners went hand in hand with the productivization of their work. For instance, Maurer, Pohl's deputy, designed rational administrative norms to designate those who were "fit to work, " eliminating the "unfit" at the same time. Kammler, the head of the SS construction corps, made a distinction between skilled armament workers and those employed in construction; the latter, working with primitive tools and starving, died en masse. In sum, behind this organization of work stood ideological considerations.
Note:
Appeared also in " Holocaust; Critical Concepts in Historical Studies" III (2004).
DOI:
10.1017/S0008938900014047
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
