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MacLean, French L. The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 1998
ISBN 0-7643-0636-7
380 pages
Acknowledgments; Introduction; photos; maps; Sources.
Appendices: SS Ranks; SS Personnel Glossary
French MacLean with this book -- the first of a planned two-volume set -- opens the door to a vast repository of cold, raw facts about the SS officers who served in the Nazi concentration camps. The material, painstakingly assembled from various archives and institutions, represents a structured, data-intensive inquiry into the "who" of the men responsible for making the death camps function. MacLean has in fact stored all the information here in a relational database which he in the closing section of the book has mined for aggregates, trends, and connections not otherwise readily apparent.
Chapter one presents an overview of the camp system, of which MacLean has identified more than fifty major facilities. Each of these is listed in alphabetical order with type of camp (concentration/labor/extermination), geographical location, date opened and closed, number of victims, and names of the main sub-camps in each complex.
The second chapter contains the heart of the book with some 900 entries for SS officers known to have served in the camps. (In his Introduction, MacLean observes that, rather than unjustly accuse an individual, he has for want of definitive proof on occasion left out the names of men who probably were assigned to camp duty.) Each listing contains a standard data set:
| Kudriawtzow |
| First Name: |
Georg |
National Archive File: |
A3343 SSO-223A |
| Birthdate: |
11 August 1892 |
Birthplace: |
St. Petersburg, Russia |
| Rank: |
SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer |
SS Number: |
393296 |
| NSDAP Number: |
Not a member |
Highest Decoration: |
War Service Cross 1st Class |
| Religion: |
Greek Orthodox |
Marital Status: |
Married |
| Waffen-SS: |
3rd SS Division "Totenkopf", 1941
2nd SS Infantry Brigade, 1942 |
|
|
| Notes: |
Fought in Russian Army in WWI
|
|
|
| Camp Service: |
Auschwitz, 1944 |
|
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After some 240 pages of these biographical listings, MacLean delves into an analysis of the officers.
He looks at "Most Frequent Places of Birth", awards and decorations, Waffen-SS service, "Distribution of NSDAP Numbers", doctors and dentists, marital status ("I did not uncover even one recorded instance of physical abuse by an officer toward his spouse"), "Highest Officer Rank Achieved", "Concentration Camp Officers Killed in Action", post-war trials and punishment, and so on. Among the most interesting of his statistical conclusions is the extremely high death rate -- much higher than in any other group -- for officers involved in "Operation Reinhard", the attempt to remove all traces of mass murder in the east.
Finally, approximately sixty pages are devoted to photographs of the officers and a few pages of maps locate the various camps in each country in Europe.
In conclusion, MacLean attempts to make a telling point about the value of an exercise such as his:
Based on our profile of the "typical" SS officer who served in the concentration camps, after fifty years the time for earthly punishment has probably passed-- since all but a handful of these men have gone to their ultimate judgment by this time. However, since the qualities and characteristics of these officers are so typical -- not only of the men of that particular time in Germany, but also for men under the right conditions today and tomorrow throughout the world -- the time for ignoring the crimes, and the camp men who committed them, should not and cannot be over.
Based on everything he has presented in his book, this final sentence seems to contain an editing error and MacLean probably means that the time for remembering the crimes, and the camp men who committed them, should not be over.
Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Schiffer Military History.
Thanks to Schiffer for providing this review copy.
Reviewed 1 November 1998
Copyright © 1998 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone
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