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Sybille Steinbacher focuses on the history of the city of Auschwitz under German occupation during the Second World War and the direct coexistence of the city and the camp complex. The question concerning the social environment of the concentration and extermination camp shows how fine the line is between normality and crime. The administrative, infrastructural, economic and social contacts to the immediate vicinity only secured the existence of the continuously growing terror site. In the light of the interwoven strands of German living space, conquest and extermination policy, the conceptual and temporal unity of “Germanisation” and the murdering of the Jews will be illustrated. A closer look at the city and the camp not only provides a special depth of focus but also illustrates that the two ideological guiding principles of the Nazi state, the idea of the “final solution of the Jewish question” and the “living space conquest in the East”, were implemented at the same time here.