The volume documents the internal instructions of the SS camp leadership to the guard units of Auschwitz. The orders, which were issued at the time as hectographed communications, have survived in only a few copies—scattered across German, Polish, and Russian archives—and have been largely overlooked by researchers. In their richness of detail, they serve as an impressive testament to the "everyday life" of the SS at the site of mass extermination and are furthermore a significant source for the historiography of the Holocaust.