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Were the SS the Elite of German Society? A new Museum Publication
Aleksander Lasik’s Sztafety Ochronne w systemie niemieckich obozów koncentracyjnych. Rozwój organizacyjny, ewolucja zadań i struktur oraz socjologiczny obraz obozowych załóg SS [The Protective Squadrons in the German concentration camp system: The organizational development, evolution of tasks and structures, and sociological makeup of the SS concentration camp garrisons], over 500 pages long, is the newest title published by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Its author is a Polish historian and expert on the SS.
In this research study, Lasik has set himself the task of showing the place of the SS in the concentration camp system that was a part of Hitler’s sate. SS personnel files, extant (and accessible) documentation from the camps themselves, and transcripts of postwar trials make up the source material for the book.
The last publications about the SS by Polish researchers appeared almost 30 years ago. The better known titles include Karol Gruenberg’s SS – Czarna gwardia Hitlera [The SS: Hitler’s black guard] and Ryszard Majewski’s Waffen-SS. Mity i rzeczywistość [The Waffen-SS: myths and reality].
Much new material about the history of the SS has come to light since that time. Although new publications on related subjects have appeared on the Polish book market, they are mostly translations of works by foreign historians. Some of them go overboard in concentrating on the “sensational and mythical” aspects of the history of the SS and Nazi Germany.
The multitude and variety of publications on the SS and the concentration camp system by no means indicates that knowledge on the topic is fully systematic, coherent, or exhaustive. As Lasik notes, not even the precise number of camps in the SS system has been definitively established to this day. Nor have all these camps been studied.
The lack of a precise definition of the SS system, its connections with the supreme leadership, and the full range of SS formations all contribute to the impression that, while the SS organization controlled the concentration camp system, the camps themselves were only a particular structure within that system and operated under conditions of full autonomy. Yet it must be remembered that the camp garrisons numbered some 60 to 70 thousand people from 1939-1945—the equivalent of 4 or 5 standard divisions. These people were an integral part of the SS organization, with all the attendant consequences. Against this background, the image of some SS divisions, once account is taken of the fact that their ranks included concentration camp garrisons, emerges in an interesting new light.
After explaining how the German concentration camp system fit into the overall SS organization and its relations with the SS command structure, Lasik investigates the historical-sociological aspects of the camp SS system; the parameters that he takes into account include age, occupation, education, religious denomination, party membership, and country of citizenship.
After analyzing his findings, Lasik attempts, without falling into easy generalizations, to solve the dilemma of whether the SS represented the elite of German society or the national-socialist movement, or whether Hannah Arendt was closer to the truth with her famous thesis about the “banality of evil.”
The book, in Polish, is available through the Museum online bookstore.
About the Author
Aleksander Lasik has been interested for years in the terror mechanisms of the German Third Reich, with special emphasis on the organization of the SS and the concentration camp system. He is a specialist in the justice meted out to Auschwitz criminals and the camp SS garrison.
His publications include Załoga SS w KL Auschwitz w latach 1940-1945 [The SS garrison in Auschwitz concentration camp, 1940-1945], and he is a co-author of the five-volume study Auschwitz 1940-1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp.
He is a member of the faculty of the Contemporary History Department at the Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
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Aleksander Lasik, Sztafety Ochronne w systemie niemieckich obozów koncentracyjnych. Rozwój organizacyjny, ewolucja zadań i struktur oraz socjologiczny obraz obozowych załóg SS [The Protective Squadrons in the German concentration camp system: The organizational development, evolution of tasks and structures, and sociological makeup of the SS concentration camp garrisons].
Published by Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim, 2007
Appendices, bibliography, index of names.
543 pp., 16.5 x 23.5 cm.
ISBN 978-83-60210-32-1
This book is published thanks to financial support from the Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego in Bydgoszcz.
