Eugen Kogon – The SS State – The System of German Concentration Camps – a copy dedicated and signed by the author

Eugen Kogon – The SS State – The System of German Concentration Camps – a copy dedicated and signed by the author

Der SS-Staat: Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager – The SS State: The System of German Concentration Camps, one of the earliest and most comprehensive studies published in Germany immediately after the war on the structure of the concentration camp system of the Third Reich. By Eugen Kogon – a former Buchenwald camp inmate. Published by Frankfurter Hefte. Berlin, 1947 – second edition, with sections added here that did not appear in the first edition. A copy dedicated and signed by the author.

Eugen Kogon's book, The SS State, written immediately after his release from the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, is considered one of the first and most in-depth studies of the Nazi apparatus of extermination and oppression. Kogon wrote the book between June 15 and December 15, 1945. Upon completion, it was handed over to the U.S. 12th Army Group and served as a basis for the investigation of several war criminals in Nuremberg, who were confronted with a flood of facts they had no idea the Allies had managed to obtain in such a short time. Eugen Kogon was imprisoned in Buchenwald for six years (1939–1945)! From 1943, he worked as a clerk for SS doctor Erwin Ding-Schuler in the camp, and used this forced proximity to help save inmates, among other things, by swapping the identities of deceased prisoners. Drawing on the extensive knowledge he accumulated during his years in the camp, he analyzes the structure of the Nazi SS not as a conventional military organization, but as a "state within a state", an independent totalitarian system that operated above the law, managing its own economy, hierarchy, and murderous ideology. Kogon details the objectives and organization of the SS state, the categories of concentration camp inmates, daily life in the camps, documentation of the various punishments inflicted by the Nazis on the prisoners, inmates’ nutrition, how money and mail were received in the camps, sanitary conditions, the covert struggle between the SS and anti-fascist forces within the camps, the psychology of the SS, the psychology of the inmates, how the crematoria and special facilities in the camps operated, how prisoners’ names were recorded and how documentation of atrocities was hidden, and more.

Through his perspective as a survivor who was involved in the internal administration of the camp as a secretary, Kogon describes how the concentration camps served as a microcosm of the Nazi regime, designed to break the spirit of the inmate, exploit him as cheap labor until death, and eliminate political and racial enemies. The book uniquely focuses on the sociology of the camp, particularly the system of “self-rule” imposed by the SS to sow division among the prisoners. Kogon details the ongoing struggle between the “Greens” (criminal prisoners) and the “Reds” (political prisoners), explaining how the latter at times attempted to assume positions of administrative power in order to save lives and mitigate the brutality of the guards, all within an impossible reality of starvation, torture, horrifying medical experiments, and daily death. Beyond the depiction of physical atrocities, which occupies a significant portion of the book, Kogon examines the moral responsibility of German society, arguing that the camp system was not a sealed secret but an integral part of Nazi Germany’s social and economic structure, casting a shadow of responsibility even on those who chose to look away. In addition to being a detailed personal testimony filled with countless descriptions of life in the camp, the book is also a piercing analysis of how bureaucracy and ideology can be transformed into a well-oiled killing machine.

Eugen Kogon (1903–1987) was a German historian, intellectual, and political activist, renowned as a determined anti-Nazi and one of the “spiritual fathers” of democratic Germany after 1945 and of the idea of a federal Europe. He was born in Munich, spent part of his youth in a Catholic environment, studied economics and sociology in Munich, Florence, and Vienna, and received his doctorate in 1927 on the subject of the fascist corporative state. Due to his anti-Nazi stance, he was arrested several times by the Gestapo, and in 1939 he was deported to Buchenwald, where he remained for six years. In the camp, from 1943, he worked as a clerk for SS doctor Erwin Ding-Schuler, and used this forced proximity to help rescue prisoners, among other means, by swapping identities with the deceased. On the eve of the camp’s liberation, he was included in a list of prisoners slated for execution, but Ding-Schuler smuggled him out and saved his life. Immediately after the war, he returned to journalism and intellectual activity, cooperated with the American army, and began writing The SS State. At the same time, he worked toward building a new socio-political order in Germany, combining Christian and social foundations, and sought a “third way” between capitalism and nationalism. Drawing from the lessons of Nazism, he was among the first advocates of the European republic and of integrating Germany into a supra-national federalist framework. He headed the Union of European Federalists from 1949 to 1954 and also served as president of the German Council of the European Movement. From 1951, he taught political science in Darmstadt until his retirement, took part in public discourse through the media, and supported the Ostpolitik policy of détente in the 1960s.

Extremely rare. Only one copy listed in the WorldCat global library catalog.

384 pages. 17 cm. Good – very good condition.