KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
Academic Academic Secondary Sources
🌍 Multi-Perspective
The complete history of the SS camp system, from the improvised cellars of 1933 to the death marches of 1945.
The Verdict
The whole system, from first to last — the definitive single-volume history of the Nazi concentration camps. Nikolaus Wachsmann traces them from the improvised SA cellars of 1933, through the prewar camps and the wartime explosion into instruments of mass murder, to the death marches of 1945. He keeps perpetrators and prisoners in the same frame, resisting both abstraction and sensationalism. Twenty years of research stand behind it; it is demanding, indispensable, and now the standard work on how the camp system actually functioned and grew.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The complete history of the SS camp system
- Readers who want the system explained, not just witnessed
- Perpetrators and prisoners held in one account
- Serious students of the Holocaust
Look elsewhere if you want
- A first, accessible book on the Holocaust (read Levi or Anne Frank)
- Readers seeking a single survivor's story
- A short treatment
Why We Rated It 4.6
Historical Context
KL (from the German Konzentrationslager) traces the Nazi camp system from its origins in 1933 through its wartime transformation into a machinery of forced labour and mass murder, to its collapse in 1945. Published in 2015 after roughly two decades of research, it integrates the experiences of prisoners with the structures and personnel of the SS.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Little, Brown / Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2015)First edition.
PaperbackThe standard reading edition.
Read It Alongside
Ordinary Men Christopher Browning · 1992 · ★ 4.8
Academic 
Into That Darkness Gitta Sereny · 1974 · ★ 4.7
Academic 
Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt · 1963 · ★ 4.5
Academic Collector's Corner
A recent title; inexpensive and easy to find. Check current listings. → Check listings on AbeBooks.
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0374535926
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank · 1947 · Jewish / Holocaust
Memoir 
If This Is a Man Primo Levi · 1947 · Jewish / Holocaust
Memoir 
Night Elie Wiesel · 1960 · Jewish / Holocaust
Memoir Other Books About the Same Events
The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank · 1947
Memoir If This Is a Man Primo Levi · 1947
Memoir Night Elie Wiesel · 1960
Memoir 
Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl · 1946
Memoir 
The Pianist Władysław Szpilman · 1946
Memoir 
Maus Art Spiegelman · 1991
Memoir More by Nikolaus Wachsmann
Guadalcanal Diary 1943 · 263 pages
Flyboys 2003 · 398 pages
Ghost Soldiers 2001 · 342 pages
The Forgotten Soldier 1965 · 465 pages
A Woman in Berlin 1959 · 261 pages
Catch-22 1961 · 453 pages
Slaughterhouse-Five 1969 · 275 pages
The Naked and the Dead 1948 · 721 pages
Flags of Our Fathers 2000 · 376 pages
In Harm's Way 2001 · 339 pages
D-Day Through German Eyes 2015 · 218 pages
Is Paris Burning? 1965 · 378 pages
All the Light We Cannot See 2014 · 531 pages
Shattered Sword 2005 · 613 pages
At Dawn We Slept 1981 · 873 pages
The Splendid and the Vile 2020 · 585 pages
First Light 2002 · 338 pages
Das Boot 1973 · 560 pages
The Cruel Sea 1951 · 416 pages
Quartered Safe Out Here 1992 · 225 pages
Defeat Into Victory 1956 · 576 pages
The Bridge on the River Kwai 1952 · 224 pages
Ivan's War 2006 · 462 pages
Bloodlands 2010 · 524 pages
Ordinary Men 1992 · 271 pages
The Tattooist of Auschwitz 2018 · 288 pages
Schindler's List 1982 · 400 pages
The Book Thief 2005 · 552 pages
The Hiding Place 1971 · 241 pages
Masters of the Air 2006 · 671 pages
A Higher Call 2012 · 392 pages
The Nightingale 2015 · 440 pages
The Second World War 1948 · 4448 pages
The Storm of War 2009 · 712 pages
Why the Allies Won 1995 · 396 pages
A World at Arms 1994 · 1178 pages
The Wages of Destruction 2006 · 800 pages
The Third Reich at War 2008 · 926 pages
Hitler 2008 · 1072 pages
Inside the Third Reich 1969 · 596 pages
The Last Days of Hitler 1947 · 288 pages
Savage Continent 2012 · 480 pages
Crusade in Europe 1948 · 559 pages
Eichmann in Jerusalem 1963 · 312 pages
Sophie's Choice 1979 · 562 pages
Mila 18 1961 · 539 pages
The Zookeeper's Wife 2007 · 368 pages
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 2006 · 216 pages
Sarah's Key 2007 · 294 pages
Number the Stars 1989 · 137 pages
We Were the Lucky Ones 2017 · 416 pages
The Choice 2017 · 320 pages
The Reader 1995 · 218 pages
The 900 Days 1969 · 635 pages
City of Thieves 2008 · 258 pages
The Unwomanly Face of War 1985 · 384 pages
Russia at War, 1941-1945 1964 · 1136 pages
When Titans Clashed 1995 · 414 pages
The Battle of Kursk 1999 · 472 pages
Panzer Leader 1952 · 554 pages
The Rape of Nanking 1997 · 290 pages
Forgotten Ally 2013 · 458 pages
Empire of the Sun 1984 · 351 pages
Eagle Against the Sun 1985 · 589 pages
The Pacific 2010 · 449 pages
Tales of the South Pacific 1947 · 384 pages
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo 1943 · 221 pages
The Making of the Atomic Bomb 1986 · 886 pages
Embracing Defeat 1999 · 676 pages
The Girls of Atomic City 2013 · 373 pages
Beyond Band of Brothers 2006 · 292 pages
If You Survive 1987 · 288 pages
Company Commander 1947 · 278 pages
A Time for Trumpets 1985 · 712 pages
D-Day Girls 2019 · 384 pages
A Woman of No Importance 2019 · 368 pages
Citizens of London 2010 · 471 pages
Naples '44 1978 · 206 pages
Beneath a Scarlet Sky 2017 · 524 pages
Alan Turing: The Enigma 1983 · 736 pages
Code Girls 2017 · 416 pages
Atonement 2001 · 351 pages
The English Patient 1992 · 305 pages
The Young Lions 1948 · 689 pages
No Ordinary Time 1994 · 759 pages
King Rat 1962 · 479 pages
Tears in the Darkness 2009 · 463 pages
We Band of Angels 1999 · 327 pages
The Forgotten Highlander 2010 · 320 pages
Life After Life 2013 · 529 pages
The Good Shepherd 1955 · 256 pages
Iron Coffins 1969 · 329 pages
When Books Went to War 2014 · 267 pages
Blood Red Snow 2002 · 320 pages
Cross of Iron 1956 · 444 pages
Soldat 1992 · 384 pages
Symphony for the City of the Dead 2015 · 456 pages
The Siege 2001 · 294 pages
The Bronze Horseman 2000 · 637 pages
The Kindly Ones 2006 · 992 pages
The Librarian of Auschwitz 2017 · 423 pages
Lilac Girls 2016 · 487 pages
HHhH 2010 · 327 pages
Into That Darkness 1974 · 380 pages
The Volunteer 2019 · 505 pages
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit 1971 · 191 pages
The Book of Lost Names 2020 · 388 pages
Hiroshima Diary 1955 · 238 pages
Requiem for Battleship Yamato 1952 · 152 pages
Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan 1955 · 266 pages
Lost in Shangri-La 2011 · 384 pages
The Rommel Papers 1953 · 545 pages
Between Silk and Cyanide 1998 · 614 pages
Monte Cassino 2003 · 416 pages
Captain Corelli's Mandolin 1994 · 437 pages
War As I Knew It 1947 · 425 pages
Up Front 1945 · 228 pages
The War That Saved My Life 2015 · 316 pages
Goodnight Mister Tom 1981 · 318 pages
Code Name Verity 2012 · 339 pages
Salt to the Sea 2016 · 391 pages
Frequently Asked Questions
- What does the title KL mean?
- It is the German abbreviation for Konzentrationslager — concentration camp.
- Is KL a good first book on the Holocaust?
- It is comprehensive but demanding; most readers come to it after a more personal introduction such as Levi or Anne Frank.