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Product Description
These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers. In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign’s architects as well as its “ordinary” soldiers and policemen, and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.
In the spring of 1941 a police academy in Pretzsch, a town on the Elbe River about fifty miles southwest of Berlin, became the site of a sinister assembly. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Horrifying,
By
This review is from: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (Vintage) (Paperback)
To read this books was a somehow horrifying experience, although I have read many books on the III. Reich before. Rhodes writes in a very clear style, he isn't accusing anyone and sticks to describing the inhumane deeds many have done during that time. Really shocking to see how many helpfull hands where involved and I wondered, what happend to all these killers and how did they fit into the post-war germany.Remarkable his explanation how this "Einsatzgruppen"-people became such monsters. A must-read for everyone having a look at the III. Reich, especially for those who think "not everything was bad in that time".
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HORRIFIC,
By
This review is from: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (Vintage) (Paperback)
I purchased this book to gain a better incite into the dark world of the SS-Einzattsgruppen, and this book certainly did the trick. This book is fantastic in many respects, not least because it not only describes in quite good detail the events and atrocities metted out by the death squads of the SS but it also tries to understand it, and does a pretty good job of it. Not why the Germans did it but why the men, some not long out of school carried out such acts,and examines whether the 'i was just following orders' line was an acceptable excuse.
This book is a powerful account of what the human being is capable of. I can honestly say no book before or since made me stop in my tracks in disbelief to think over what ive just read, i had to read half of the book twice just to make sure i hadnt misunderstood, its a tribute to the men, women and children who suffered the most horrendous of ends. READ THIS BOOK.
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing.,
By
This review is from: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (Vintage) (Paperback)
This chilling in depth study describes the reality of how the genocide of the Jews and the destruction of other groups planned by the Nazis did not actually begin with the mass, "industrial" exterminations in the gas chambers of the Concentration Camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka etc., but with small groups known as the "Einsatzgruppen". Units described as being formed by the Nazi SS leaders Himmler and Heydrich immediately before the invasion of the East/Soviet Union and which followed the advancing German Armies. Special squads cited in this work as often consisting of many professional, "educated" men such as lawyers, doctors, architects etc., and who are shown here to have participated in an acutely "personal" manner of murder where some 1.5 million men, women and children were barbarically executed by shooting. The book describes how the bodies of their victims were disposed of in "killing pits" (often anti tank ditches, natural ravines or freshly dug pits). The text revealing how many of the mass graves each contained numerous thousands of innocent victims, frequently shot one by one and buried layer upon layer. One such massacre quoted in this study as being carried out in the aforementioned manner is that at Babi Yar. A ravine where Jewish men, women, children & the elderly are demonstrated here to have been systematically machine gunned in a two day period of execution. Numerous photographs are also provided showing how some of the 1.5 million innocent Jews and innocent Poles and Russians were marched to such "pits" as these before being lined up and summarily executed. The book also describes the beginning of the use of mobile gas "killing vans" where the victims carried in sealed areas to the rear were subjected to the vehicles' exhaust fumes. The graphic detail provided in this work is in itself difficult to read and might upset many readers, but the author makes no effort to trivialise the suffering of the utterly defenceless victims and the cold blooded barbarity of their executors. Many eyewitness accounts and testimonies of those who participated in the slaughters have been uncovered and are used to provide an essential reference and authenticity to the context of this presentation. Early on in the book the writer provides a commentary on the nature of violence and how these "ordinary" men became capable of carrying out such atrocities. The study further documents the impact of these mass murders on the individual perpetrators and the ensuing psychological traumas that many endured. Some readers might disagree with the conclusions drawn here or like myself feel uneasy with the section of the book which tries to fathom the mind set of these murderers. The study also makes specific mention of how Adolf Hitler cherished a fanatic hatred of the Jews and how he personally ensured that the highest priority was placed on their total elimination. The book likewise analyses how Hitler also intended to enslave and destroy with privation the far more numerous Slavic peoples as well. This is an extremely powerful book and a major contribution towards the study of the Holocaust. Recommended.
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