Theresienstadt 1941 - 1945

H. G. Adler's monograph on Theresienstadt has been considered the standard work on this 'ghetto' since its first publication in 1955. The work established itself as the most comprehensive, reliable account of a camp in the Third Reich. Adler began collecting material for his monograph during his imprisonment in Theresienstadt. He then deepened his insights into the extermination system during his imprisonment in Auschwitz and in Buchenwald subcamps. Adler's method is characterised by the fact that he consciously distanced himself from his experiences during his imprisonment, behaving as if he were an ethnologist in order to save himself as a human being. The detached objectivity of his account struck and convinced the readers. Adler explores the history, sociology and psychology of the camp in three major drafts. Essential methods of modern historiography appear here for the first time in science in the exploration of the 'Endl&ouml sung'. Above all, Adler makes the documents speak in an impressive manner, through which the magnitude of the events was irrefutably expressed. Also fundamental is Adler's masterful analysis of the National Socialist system, in which he illuminates the principle of power as well as the success and downfall of the Third Reich. Among the earliest readers and supporters of Adler's book were Hermann Broch ('doubtlessly a standard work'), Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, who was instrumental in its first publication. In the meantime, Theresienstadt has not only made a name for itself among historians and sociologists, but has also found expression in the recent writings of authors such as Kempowski and W. G. Sebald.