This volume describes the history of the city of Auschwitz during the Second World War, focussing on the conceptional, chronological and spatial unity of the policy of Germanization and extermination both in Auschwitz and the neighbouring region of Eastern Upper Silesia. It becomes apparent that Auschwitz played an eminent role in the economic policy and settlement schemes of the National Socialists. Despite its close proximity to the concentration and extermination camp, the city became the model site for Germanizing the East.