The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System (Schiffer Military History) [Hardcover]

French L. MacLean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998 | Series: Schiffer Military History

nside these pages you will meet over 960 infamous men the officers of Nazi Germany's Totenkopf (Death's Head). You will encounter the 256 SS officers who worked at Dachau the SS concentration camp that doubled as a training school for death. You will

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764306367
• ISBN-13: 978-0764306365
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #993,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A system so terrible that we still do not think it possible, July 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System (Schiffer Military History) (Hardcover)

French Maclean's latest work is a resource book designed to chronicle those Nazi SS officer personnel who served in the Nazi concentration camps. While some readers may be dissatisfied with the shortness of the narrative, this is not the objective of the author. Maclean's book provides us a near complete record of all SS officers who served in the camps. He has met his objective to give a full accounting of those who were part of the great crimes perpetuated by the Nazis. While the text is an excellent source work, the lengthy photograph section is superb. The section includes extremely rare photos of the Nazi leaders at the death camps. Some photos have never appeared before, having been obtained from private sources. Maclean, now with four books on the Nazis, is quickly becoming the master of new detailed research about the Third Reich.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most complete book on concentration camp officers ever!, May 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System (Schiffer Military History) (Hardcover)

The only negative aspect of this marvelous book is that it was not written forty years ago, when undoubtedly it would have put numerous men behind bars. Author French MacLean appears to have left no stone unturned in a massive effort that lists and provides key background data on almost one thousand SS officers who served in the concentration camps. MacLean doesn't just rehash the dozen or so major camp commanders; he goes after, and finds, camp doctors, dentists, supply officers and guard commanders from general down to lieutenant. It would have been a prosecutor's dream in 1945; in 1999, it is a Holocaust historian's dream.

Almost everything you could want to know about each man is there: date of birth, place of birth, marital status, religion, highest rank, highest decoration, dates served in the camp, service in the Waffen-SS, SS number, Nazi Party number, and so forth, derived from the SS officer personnel files located on microfilm at the National Archives. Many biographies also have a human interest nugget of information that could range from postwar fate to whether the officer had ever been wounded in action.

A second compelling feature of this book is the presentation of a computer analysis of the officers as a whole. This includes an in-depth discussion of rank, marital status, awards, Nazi Party affiliation, SS membership, combat service, post-war fate and more. This research alone should spur even more historical research into the lives of these SS officers. Especially compelling is MacLean's treatment of the number of doctors who served in the camp, the link between concentration camp service and later Waffen-SS front-line service, and an intriguing "what if" scenario concerning the fate of the officers assigned to Operation Reinhard, the secret murder camps that killed almost two million people at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.

The photographs are magnificent and number well over 150. Presented in black and white, they show individual studio portraits as well as group shots of these men at the camps themselves. Several will send a chill down your spine. The dozen or so maps are professionally done and show the locations, by country, of all of the major factories of death of the Nazi regime. Especially interesting are the maps, and the camp descriptions in the first part of the book, of the early Nazi camps from the 1933 to 1937 period.

In short, if you could only have one book in your personal library that presented a history of the Nazis in these notorious camps, this would be that book. It is a book you will keep at your fingertips, when reading other books about the Holocaust, for easy reference when one comes across a name of an officer. Get this book. You won't be disappointed.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Reference Work, August 18, 2000

By 

Garrick Bergh (Cape Town South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System (Schiffer Military History) (Hardcover)

Many books have been written about the Holocaust, SS and the Nazi regime in general. Where many of them fail is in referring to individuals as if the reader understands exactly where they fitted into the overall picture and is familiar with them.

If you have made more than a cursory journey through this fascinating and terrifying period this book is an essential source of reference.

The author has diligently uncovered, at the very least, the basic identity of virtually every individual who served in the concentration camp system. That many of them subsequently 'graduated' to front line service in the Waffen SS does not disguise the reality that they had camp 'pedigrees' - somewhat at odds with the popular 'we were only soldiers' cop out.

So next time a name, whether familiar or unfamiliar, crops up in a World War 2 oriented publication you are reading chances are you could reach for this book and find his ( or her!) personal details, service record, and maybe even a photograph.

Had this book been released shortly after 1945 I am certain it would have caused a great deal of discomfort to a number of individuals who subsequently covered themselves in shrouds of anonymity.