In this book written in 1952, tells Robert Merle, novelist, life Rudolf Lang (R.Hoess), commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp. It has the merit of precision, and is distinguished by its high clarity. As such, it deserves to be read, writing is clear. Yet all is a serious problem. Robert Merle shows psyche, determined by a highly authoritarian Father, hating life, haunted by an obsession with the devil, imposing an absolute discipline, regulating every action of his family and rejecting any dead time, any uncertainty, all that can escape its control (the body, affection, the future). Rudolf lives in a world with no links with anyone. Only the image of the Father, he hated but which his life will be doomed despite himself inhabits. On the death of his father, will replace Germany alone. He entered the war only 14 sixteen. He will never leave the war, "Death is my business," then his life will be one long obedience to the Father. But this is where the bottom lies. Can we submit a psychological study to an absolute determinism? And if so, does the creative writing provided undergo an imperative that seems to it by external nature? Thus I have often been annoyed by certain psychological notes, on conformity, profound indifference to the world, the desperate search for security in order, that we learn to predict the pages. This is not to deny the psychological portrait painted by the author, but rather to say that it has submitted its writing to its object, where such a fate seemed to require more astonishment, fumbling on the part one who described him. In total, Robert Merle perhaps even give him the key to these objections, in his preface written in 1972: "Death is my Profession has not failed drives. Only their age varied: those who read it now were born after 1945. For them, Death is my Occupation, it is a "history book. "And to a large extent, I give them reason. "Testimony of the Book, historical, psychiatry. None of these words seems to be rejected. But is it then a novel?
We suggest parallel reading the book by Peter Diener, Diary of a mad Edition of dawn, which for this investment on the side of the victim, is far more valuable.
