The Buchenwald Report

By David A. Hackett

Book Overview

In the closing weeks of World War II, advancing Allied armies uncovered the horror of the Nazi concentration camps. The first camp to be liberated in western Germany was Buchenwald, on April 11, 1945. Within days, a special team of German-speaking intelligence officers from the U.S. Army was dispatched to Buchenwald to interview the prisoners there. In the short time available to them before the inmates' final release from the camp, this team was to prepare a report to be used against the Nazis in future war crimes trials. Nowhere else was such a systematic effort made to talk with prisoners and record their firsthand knowledge of the daily life, structure, and functioning of a concentration camp. The result was an important and unique document, The Buchenwald Report. Shockingly, not long after the war ended The Buchenwald Report was almost lost forever. Only selected portions were entered as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Professor Eugen Kogon, a prisoner at Buchenwald who assisted the Army specialists in conducting their interviews and writing the report, made use of the material gathered as a background source for his classic book, The Theory and Practice of Hell, but subsequently his copy was accidently destroyed. Thus the complete report was never published, and both the original document and a precious handful of copies gradually disappeared. Recently--more than four decades later--a single, faded carbon copy was discovered, apparently the only one still in existence. It is translated from German and presented here in book form, as its authors intended, for the first time.The book is divided into two parts. The first, the Main Report, formally presents the interview team's findings. It describes in detail the camp's history, how it was organized and functioned, who the prisoners were, how they lived, and how they were treated by their Nazi captors. This part of the report is based on the camp's own incriminating files and records as well as on information obtained from the prisoners.The second part, the Individual Reports, is the heart of the book. Here are the eyewitness accounts of the camp inmates, statements taken while they were still behind the same barbed wire that had held them for so many years. The prisoners relate events so recent, so painful, that they can only speak with strong emotions but often with great eloquence. The interview team had the foresight to take these accounts and organize them according to specific topics, for example forced labor, daily camp life, punishments, resistance, or SS guards. As a result, the book goes beyond simply a collection of individual stories, providing instead a well-rounded portrayal of every aspect of Buchenwald concentration camp from the prisoners' point of view. The Buchenwald Report is one of the most remarkable and important documents to emerge from the Holocaust and World War II. It is a deposition against the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, damning testimony provided by their intended victims in a final act of defiance. These are the voices of people courageous enough to tarry a while longer in hell, so that they could tell the world the truth at last. Perhaps they already sensed that, as Milan Kundera was to put it, "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." After fifty years, and too many lapses of memory, we know they were right.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813317770
• ISBN13: 9780813317779
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Nazi depravity at its worst

I had read Eugen Kogon's work titled "The Theory and Practice of Hell" and wondered could this work be any more enlightening as to Buchenwald camp. The reports, listed as personal narratives, are quite graphic and revealing as to the nature of this camp and its staff. This book is a real eye opener to any student of the Holocaust who desires a knowledge of camps inside Germany, as opposed to the death camps in Poland for instance. It reveals the abject corruption of the s.s. when they were exposed to unlimited money, power and control. I do not excuse their actions in any way, but am glad that these villains are portrayed in the cowardly light they lived in. One report of personal interest to me pertains to prisoners sent from Buchenwald to Auschwitz where the activities of Otto Moll, the sadistic beast of Birkenau are chronicled. I would appreciate any titles or information on this elusive person only from an information standpoint. I recommend this book for its educational and personal power...the depths that men sink to are truly bottomless.

Powerful Book

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is the United States government report on the Buchenwald concentration camp that was liberated by American forces during the end of the Second World War. The book covers the state of the camp when it was liberated, the types of prisoners, the methods used to subdue and kill the prisoners, and the fate of the camp administration and guards once the camp was over run. The book also has a number of camp diagrams and black and white photos. To say that this is a moving book only scratches the service the powerful emotions that the reader will face going through the text. Although this was designed to be a government report, there is no way to document this period and situation without your emotions coming through in the writing and these author's prove that point. The issue is a stark look at one of the worst examples of the inhumanity one people can inflict on another. If you are interested in learning about the holocaust this is a good way to start, because it will give you an up front, no spin view of the actual conditions.

Disturbing, but Important

As a Jew, I feel it is very important to be as informed as possible about the past of my religion and my people. The events of the holocaust, and in turn, the events at the Buchenwald Camp were truly horrific. From the knowledge of what occured there comes a sort of preventative aide-if people know of the tragedy that occured, then it can be prevented from ever happening again. The accounts offered in the Buchenwald Report are harrowing and disturbing. I read the entire book, from cover to cover, and although some accounts are somewhat tedious and repetative, there is nothing more intimate than someone's personal account of their experience at Buchenwald. I highly recommend this book to anyone with slight interest in the happenings of world war II and specifically, how the holocaust was personally effecting people's lives. The reason for four stars is first of all: As much as I find this book important to read, it's not enjoyable, as a book really should be. Such depressing subject matter, but it is important to be disposed to such information, as a sort of (to restate myself) preventative for something like this ever happening again. As for a historian's standpoint, also, I am not sure as to how accurate all of the information provided within this book is. A very valuable read, though.

A Fascinating Official Documented History of A Death Camp!

With the publication of this official report after some fifty years, the Allied attempt to comprehensively document the damning specifics of life in a German concentration camp has finally reached the public as was originally intended. Buchenwald was among the first of the camps to be liberated by the Allies in the final days of the war in Europe, and the authorities wanted to have firm and indisputable proof of the atrocities and barbarism perpetrated on the defenseless and noncombatant prisoners of the camp by the Nazi regime. Thus, an amazing and almost protean attempt was made by the Allies to capture, for the record, every conceivable aspect of life within the concentration camp before the prisoners, guards and other witnesses to the horrors vanished into the mists and confusion of post-war Germany. This is truly a startling document to read. There is frank and open discussion about mind-boggling horrors, from the crematoriums and execution rooms to gruesome and bizarre medial experiments carried out at the medical facility within the confines of the camp. Treatment of the prisoners by guards, capos and other officials is described in detail. Little is left to the imagination, for the ultimate purpose of the documentation was to use as evidence against the Nazis in the planned war crime trials at Nuremberg. The report is in two principal parts; Part One presents the findings of the Allied investigation team and consists of a complete history and description of the camp and its nefarious activities. Part Two consists of the eye-witness reports of the prisoners, describing a plethora of experiences ranging from starvation, slave labor, mistreatment in the way of denial of medical treatment, exposure to the elements, denial of sleep, torture, medical experimentation, and wanton murder. The history of the report itself is also quite interesting. Evidently most of the copies were lost in the chaos and confusion of Allied postwar activities. Not until the middle 1980s did one badly faded carbon copy emerge and come to the attention of English scholar David Hackett, who had it translated, edited, and reorganized to prepare it for publication. This is not easy reading, and it takes some effort to exercise the patience required to muddle through some rather dry and seemingly endless coverage of tangential materials, but it provides the serious reader an opportunity to take a first-hand look at a quite unique eye-witness report on absolute madness and insanity as practiced in this century by a supposedly sane, sophisticated and civilized culture. Truly this is a look over the edge of the chasm into evil incarnate.