The Birdman of Auschwitz: New Exhibition at the House 88

Reviewing Essay in two parts. 

Part I can be read here. 

Thought-provoking and unusual exhibition The Birdman of Auschwitz: Science and Faltered Conscience has been opened at House 88 in Oswenziem, Poland, in a direct proximity to Auschwitz camp. The exhibition which evokes fundamental questions that has become acutely relevant today again, is located at the house in which Rudolf Höss’ family was happily thriving during his years as the Auschwitz Commandant, and even during his absence there. Since 2025, the house has become a site-specific awareness and education point of ARCHER Project that fights antisemitism and terrorism.

The Story of Moral Creeps, Their Actions & Traces 

The Birdman of Auschwitz exhibition presents in documents, photos, and artifacts the story that if it would be first laid out as a script , it might not get far as the Hollywood script-gatekeepers would think that the imagination of the script writer was too wild. Once again, history itself has proved to be the most surprising author. In this case, it happened through a very able and thorough British historian Nicholas Wilton on whose book The Birdman of Auschwitz ( 2025) the current exhibition at ARCHER at House 88 is based. 

The visitors of the exhibition and the readers of the book will learn the story of a very well-known and highly esteemed scientist in the pre- and post- WWII Germany and Austria, Gunter Niethammer, who was the head of the Department of Ornithology at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna just on the brink on WWII. 

At the same time, the man was a devoted Nazi. Like many of his scientific colleagues, Niethammer did rush to prove his loyalty to the Nazism and join the party early, to guarantee the smoothness of his career. At the same time, he actually belonged to the Nazi elite, via his family circle. 

Niethammer was the nephew of an ultra-nationalist writer Hans Grimm, the one who invented and created a concept of Volk onhe Raum, A People Without Space, at the early moment of the formation of the Nazi ideology, in 1926, next year after publication of Mein Kampf. 

Not only that line, Volk onhe Raum, has become the title of Grimm’s very well-known novel, but because of that, the novel was probably the most-read book in Germany and Austria all the years from its release throughout the war, until 1945, at least. There is statistical data with this regard. Grimm’s 1345-page novelized ideology has become the backbone of the explanation of the necessity of expansionist global war. And its author has been very well-known in the top-layer of the Reich. So his nephew Gunter, who has been quite close to his writer uncle,  had a very solid and far-stretching backing in his career and life in general, too. 

Niethammer joined the Nazi party in 1937, when he was 25. Two years later, he joined the SS. Immediately after, he joined the Secret Field Police. He knew exactly what he was doing, why and what for. He was turned away from the Luftwaffe, mostly likely due to his age (he was over 30 at the time), and also due to the fact that he had no military background. He ended up as a guard in Auschwitz, staying there on duties at the main entrance. The most inviting point for bird-watching, naturally for the Nazis. 

In a half of a year, he started to use his family and academic connections to get transferred from under that huge Arbeit Macht Frei sign over his head while on duty. At the same time, he tried hard to be useful for Rudolf Höss, who did........

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