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Günther Niethammer was both a highly respected ornithologist and a camp guard at Auschwitz, unusually managing to combine both roles at the same time. This book looks at how an apparently decent man such as Niethammer could cope with the horrors going on around him, and in his case thrive in his original profession, actually using his time in the camps to his advantage.
Niethammer’s fate was self imposed. At the start of the war he tried to volunteer for the normal armed services but was turned down for being too old. His reaction was apply to the Waffen SS, which at the time hadn’t gained its later reputation but was still the military wing of the Nazi party. They also didn’t want him for front line work, and so he was sent to the new camp at Auschwitz.
Niethammer spent two spells at Auschwitz, separated by a trip to Crete to carry out a bird survey! During the first spell the camp was a concentration camp, in which conditions were terrible and deaths common, but by the time he returned it had been turned into a death camp, the first gas chambers built, and mass murder had become the business of the camp.
The Auschwitz section of Niethammer’s life has two focuses. The first is on the camp itself – how it was being developed, what was going on there, Himmler’s visits etc, supported by material from the notorious camp commandant Hoss’s autobiography. This ensures that we never lose sight of exactly where Niethammer was living and working. The second is on Niethammer himself, his activities as a guard and the ways he tried to avoid them, and his relationship with Hoss. It is clear that Niethammer was always unhappy to be at Auschwitz and did what he could to avoid his duties. He was able to convince Hoss that his scientific work was good for the camps’ reputation (and also was able to combine it with providing fresh game for his kitchen), and was thus able to get permission to carry out a survey of the local birdlife, which was actually published as a scientific paper! This was also how he was able to get permission to join an expedition to study the birds of Crete.
After this he was forced to return to the camp, but applied to be moved, and once again his scientific reputation helped him, when he was requested as a member of a team studying the newly conquered Caucasus. However even this expedition would have been tainted by crimes against humanity if it had actually gone ahead, as amongst the equipment was mincing equipment for use on human flesh, and one of its members went on to Auschwitz to find ‘interesting types’ to be gassed and used in a museum of anatomy. Likewise the expedition to Crete was made possible by the German conquest, and the author does a good job of tying Niethammer’s time on the island to crimes committed by the occupying Germans, a reminder that all of his wartime work was compromised. He was later used on semi-diplomatic expeditions to Bulgaria and Trieste in attempts to bolster support for the Germans as the war turned against them, but without success.
Post-war he surrendered to the British but was then sent to Poland to be tried for his role at Auschwitz. An initial sentence of eight years was reduced to three after appeal, when he was supported by many of his German colleagues and the British. The German support was dismissed, but the British efforts probably had some impact, along with support from a Polish doctor who had interviewed him after the war. It probably helps that Niethammer was one of the few Auschwitz guards who admitted to knowing about the crimes being carried out there, and was able to point to his requests to leave.
This is a thought provoking book, and even after finishing it I’m not sure what I think of Niethammer. He was clearly willing to use the Nazis to further his career as an ornithologist, but at the same time it is clear that he hated his time at Auschwitz, and successfully managed to get posted away from the camp twice, despite being highly regarded by Hoss. Well worth a read, and provides a valuable look at how a decent person could end up entwined in dreadful events.
Chapters
1 – Far Away, in the Back of Beyond, in Poland
2 – From Bird Books to the Waffen-SS
3 – Bullies, Psychopaths and Sadists
4 – Solace in Science
5 – Auschwitz II-Birkenau: A New Camp
6 – Fortress Crete: Birds and the Resistance
7 – Observations on the Birdlife of Auschwitz
8 – The Pope of Ornithology
9 – Prisoners of War
10 – The Final Solution
11 – Death Duties
12 – Birdie behind Barbed Wire
13 – The Greatest Human Extermination Centre of All Time
14 – Special Command ‘K’ in the Caucasus
15 – Natural Selection in Action
16 – The Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS
17 – Liberation of Auschwitz
18 – An Accomplice to the Crimes Committed at Auschwitz
19 – The Verdict
Author: Nicholas Milton
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Year: 2025