Nicholas Milton is a productive author and this is the fifth of his books I’ve reviewed here. The Role of Birds in World War One, The Role of Birds in World War Two and The Secret Life of the Adder were published in 2022 and followed Neville Chamberlain’s Legacy in 2019. I’ve rated all of his books highly as he writes seriously about fairly recent history but brings in the natural history elements too. He is a proper naturalist as demonstrated by his book on Adders.
His books also have forewords by impressive people, not just Chris Packham but Hilary Benn, Beccy Speight, Ben Sheldon and in this case Ed Balls (and Chris Packham). Ed Balls, I know, has an interest in nature but he writes as the co-chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation Advisory Body.
Niethammer was born in 1908 and was already a distinguished ornithologist when war broke out, having compiled the first volume of the handbook of German birds (1937) and he continued to work on the other two volumes (Vol 3 published 1942). He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Waffen-SS in 1940 and was a security guard at Auschwitz from 1940 and served in combat later in the war. He was imprisoned in Warsaw by the Allies after the war, for three years, and on his release he returned to a career of ornithology and died in 1974.
Whilst at Auschwitz, Niethammer watched and studied birds and was excused other duties. He was birdwatching and doing ornithological studies within sight of a concentration camp whose name is synonymous with horror and evil. This book fills in the details of ‘what’ but also explores the issue of ‘how?’ and ‘how could anyone?’. I had to steel myself to read it as my natural reaction was to shrink away from what I knew would be a difficult read emotionally.
This feels like a very thorough and efficient chronicle of Niethammer’s life, his war, and the lives and wars of those around him. Because of his background, some of his time was spent on ornithological expeditions in countries recently invaded by Nazi Germany. At the end of the war, those involved in the concentration camps were fleeing from the Allied forces (particularly the Red Army) and we learn, in quite some detail, of the flight and ultimate fate of Heinrich Himmler, the Auschwitz Camp Commandant, Hedwig Höß, and Niethammer himself. These are riveting accounts.
Niethammer probably wasn’t directly and personally responsible for deaths at Auschwitz but he was part of the system. He was ‘only obeying orders’ and although it is easy to be outraged by that thought this book might put you in the position of wondering how you would have behaved under similar circumstances. I grew up at a time when ‘the war’ was still fresh in people’s minds, my parents had lived through it and their friends and relatives too. As a boy, and as a man, I have often wondered how I would react to having to make decisions under war circumstances. Would I be brave or just the opposite, would I obey orders and would that be any orders? I’d like to think I would have been heroic and blameless but I somehow doubt that would have been the case. That’s what Niethammer would probably have hoped before the war and it didn’t work out quite so well for him.
The relatively lenient treatment of Niethammer (a curtailed prison term) and how it came about made interesting reading and the rehabilitation of him as an eminent ornithologist with his war record hardly known to others, or mentioned, sheds another light on human behaviour.
This book arrived, to the day, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz which was either superb timing by the publisher or a fluke. It felt a bit like a sign that I should read it from cover to cover even though I wasn’t that eager to get into it. I’m very glad I did read it. There is a little bit about birds, and birds are always interesting, but a lot about our species and we are pretty fascinating too.
The cover? It is pretty much perfect in telling you what’s in the book. You would be hard-pressed to claim that you didn’t know what you were buying having seen the cover. Although it isn’t exactly a cheery scene, I can’t see any reason for docking a point so I’ll give the cover 10/10.
The Birdman of Auschwitz: the life of Gunther Niethammer, the ornithologist seduced by the Nazis by Nicholas Milton is published by Pen and Sword.
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Buy direct from Blackwell’s – a proper bookshop (and I’ll get a little bit of money from them)
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