Describes how KL Dachau became the "school" for the later SS commanders of extermination camps like Auschwitz, and what mechanisms ensured the functioning of the murder machine before it collapsed in complete chaos in early 1945.
Depicts the twelve years of existence of the system from the point of view of the prisoners. The concentration camp prisoners practically have their own say in their diary entries. A Franconian legal adviser and a Berlin secretary, both of Jewish descent, a Munich communist, a Slovenian prisoner of war, an Austrian dissident and a Polish priest. Six individual biographies report on suffering, courage, rivalries and solidarity in everyday camp life.
