A short and thoroughly accurate history of the Auschwitz concentration camp, this compelling book is authoritative in its factual details, devastating in its emotional impact.
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"Brings the reality of this evil place so directly, vividly, accurately, movingly and clearly to the mind of the reader." -- --Paul Johnson
"Brings the reality of this evil place so directly, vividly, accurately, movingly and clearly to the mind of the reader." -- Paul Johnson
About the Author
Otto Friedrich, born in 1929 in Boston, majored in history at Harvard, where he received a degree magna cum laude in 1948. He went to Europe and worked for the Stars & Stripes in Germany and United Press in Paris and London. Returning to New York, he served as an editor at the Daily News, Newsweek, and the Saturday Evening Post. He was managing editor at the Post from 1965 until the magazine's suspension in 1969. Friedrich's account of the Post's last years, Decline and Fall, appeared in 1970 and was hailed as `a classic of American journalism.' It won the George Polk Award as that year's best book on the press. Among his other books are Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s (1972); Going Crazy: A Personal Inquiry (1976); The End of the World: A History (1982); City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s (1986); Glenn Gould. A Life and Variations (1990); Olympia. Paris in the Age of Manet (1992); and The Kingdom of Auschwitz (1994). Friedrich also wrote two novels and, in collaboration with his wife, nine children's books.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Kingdom of Auschwitz" is an extract from Otto Friedrich's larger, sadly out-of-print "The End of the World: A History." In that book Friedrich examined several earth-shaking events in world history including the Black Death in Europe, the 1905 Russian revolution, and the fall of Rome. The book's climax is this long essay on Auschwitz (with an epilogue speculating on the effects of possible nuclear war circa 1982.)
Friedrich was a very talented journalist with a rich appreciation of history and a hypnotically readable prose style. Here he synthesizes the best available literature about the death camp to produce what is probably the best short history of that black hole at the heart of Western civilization. This is a good place to start if you are just beginning to read about the Holocaust. Expert readers will have their sense of the horror of the place renewed. Friedrich writes that Auschwitz does not disprove God: "Two men arguing about the existence of God is like two worker ants debating the existence of Mozart." A small masterpiece.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent historical primer on the initiation, conduct, discovery, and destruction of the Auschwitz extermination camp (albeit with a couple of factual and critical thinking errors that need not be delved into here) as well as the disputes after World War II regarding the preservation, administration, and ideation of the camp.
The author discusses in an even-handed, almost dispassionate, manner not only the tragic events that occurred at the camp itself but (1) the association of certain German companies, namely, chemical giant I.G. Farben, with slave labor by camp inmates, (2) the failure of the West to do anything even though it was suspected as early as 1942, and duly reported in London newspapers, that 1 million people had already died in the camp (although this apparently turned out to be an exaggeration), and (3) the failure of the Allies, primarily the U.S., to bomb the railways from Hungary to Auschwitz in the closing months of the war when about 300,000 Hungarian Jews were transported (under the stewardship of Adolf Eichmann) to Auschwitz for immediate termination. (The reason the Allies repeatedly gave for not intervening was that the concentration camps were of no military importance and military assets could not be diverted from the war effort. Although, if memory serves me correctly, the complete and utter lack of a military objective did not stop Patton from diverting his troops to rescue his son-in-law from a German prisoner of war camp.)
As for whether the German people (that is, the public in general) knew about what was going on, the author gives no definitive answer. Certainly anyone involved with the use of slave labor cannot claim ignorance of their mistreatment. Nor, obviously, could anyone who worked in these camps feign lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the author correctly points out that the Final Solution itself, i.e., the ongoing decimation and eventual extermination of the Jewish population in Europe, especially as it was put into place at Auschwitz, was in effect a State secret and disclosure of it was punishable by death.
For anyone who wants to learn about and try to understand Auschwitz and what happened there, this book may be the best place to start. As for any final answers on the Final Solution, that may not be possible. As concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel aptly put it, the more he read, studied, and learned about the Final Solution, the less and less he understood it.
The author discusses in an even-handed, almost dispassionate, manner not only the tragic events that occurred at the camp itself but (1) the association of certain German companies, namely, chemical giant I.G. Farben, with slave labor by camp inmates, (2) the failure of the West to do anything even though it was suspected as early as 1942, and duly reported in London newspapers, that 1 million people had already died in the camp (although this apparently turned out to be an exaggeration), and (3) the failure of the Allies, primarily the U.S., to bomb the railways from Hungary to Auschwitz in the closing months of the war when about 300,000 Hungarian Jews were transported (under the stewardship of Adolf Eichmann) to Auschwitz for immediate termination. (The reason the Allies repeatedly gave for not intervening was that the concentration camps were of no military importance and military assets could not be diverted from the war effort. Although, if memory serves me correctly, the complete and utter lack of a military objective did not stop Patton from diverting his troops to rescue his son-in-law from a German prisoner of war camp.)
As for whether the German people (that is, the public in general) knew about what was going on, the author gives no definitive answer. Certainly anyone involved with the use of slave labor cannot claim ignorance of their mistreatment. Nor, obviously, could anyone who worked in these camps feign lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the author correctly points out that the Final Solution itself, i.e., the ongoing decimation and eventual extermination of the Jewish population in Europe, especially as it was put into place at Auschwitz, was in effect a State secret and disclosure of it was punishable by death.
For anyone who wants to learn about and try to understand Auschwitz and what happened there, this book may be the best place to start. As for any final answers on the Final Solution, that may not be possible. As concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel aptly put it, the more he read, studied, and learned about the Final Solution, the less and less he understood it.
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a good little book about Auschwitz. It is extremely thin and easy to read (128 pages). If you just want to know a little bit about Auschwitz and are not inclined to read one of the heavy books on the subject then this may be a good alternative. I found it easy to read and did not lack any of the intensity found in the bigger volumes on the subject. It is very detailed. It is also a great book to introduce yourself on the operations of the death camps. This book may spark your interest and you may want to read further on the subject. I finished it in only a few hours. Nice and easy reading.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brief but very impactful
Of all the literature I have read on Auschwitz, this may have been the shortest, but it was the broadest in terms of disclosing the roots, history and back story of how Auschwitz... Read more
Published on August 8, 2010 by Bookshops, Drive-ins and Jive
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easy Read. Very Informative.
I had to read this book for a US History class and I was very impressed by the book. At no time was I bored with the book. It's actually very captivating and informative. Read more
Published on June 12, 2006 by J. Campbell
4.0 out of 5 stars
The terrible scope of the horror
Most of the previous accounts of Auschwitz that I've read have been personal accounts, most recently Rudolph Vrba's Escape from Auschwitz. Read more
Published on January 10, 2005 by Andrew W. Johns
4.0 out of 5 stars
an accurate perspective of Nazi Germany
a quick read for students, an objective attempt to chronologically illustrate the rise and decline of the Auschwitz extermination camp under Nazi German rule in which innocent... Read more
Published on April 11, 1999 by WINSTONSMITH@prodigy.net
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 35
books:
See all 35 books this book cites
11
books
cite this book:
See all 11 books citing this book
- Eichmann in Jerusalem (Penguin Classics) by Hannah Arendt on page 22, and Back Matter
- The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1935-1945 by Gerald Reitlinger in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi on page 1, and Back Matter
- Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps by Robert H. Abzug in Back Matter
- Going crazy: An inquiry into madness in our time by Otto Friedrich in Front Matter
See all 35 books this book cites
- Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s by Otto Friedrich in Front Matter
- Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory by Glenn Sujo in Back Matter
- The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris in Back Matter
- The Hidden Life of Otto Frank by Carol Ann Lee in Back Matter
- "Odd" Fellows in the Politics of Religion (Approaches to Semiotics) by Gary Lease in Back Matter
See all 11 books citing this book
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