This volume contains the most important contributions by distinguished historians who have thoroughly demolished this Wehrmacht myth. The picture that emerges from this collection is a depressing one and raises many questions about why "ordinary men" got involved as perpetrators and bystanders in an unprecedented program of extermination of "racially inferior" men, women, and children in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Second World War."--Pub. desc.

On June 22, 1941, Germany launched the greatest land assault in history on the Soviet Union, an attack that Adolf Hitler deemed crucial to ensure German economic and political survival. As the key theater of the war for the Germans, the eastern front consumed enormous levels of resources and accounted for 75 percent of all German casualties. Despite the significance of this campaign to Germany and to the war as a whole, few English-language publications of the last thirty-five years have addressed these pivotal events. In Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East, Stephen G. Fritz bridges the gap in scholarship by incorporating historical research from the last several decades into an accessible, comprehensive, and coherent narrative. His analysis of the Russo-German War from a German perspective covers all aspects of the eastern front, demonstrating the interrelation of military events, economic policy, resource exploitation, and racial policy that first motivated the invasion. This in-depth account challenges accepted notions about World War II and promotes greater understanding of a topic that has been neglected by historians.

The breakthrough bestseller by a German academic (and longtime researcher with the German military archives) that documented Stalin's murderous war against the German army and the German people to today's German public. Based on the late Joachim Hoffmann's lifelong study of German and Russian military records, Stalin's War of Extermination not only reveals--as never before--the Red Army's grisly record of atrocities against soldiers and civilians, but establishes beyond cavil that torture, murder, and rape of the captive and the helpless was official Soviet policy, as ordered by Comrade J.V. Stalin. In detail: Since the 1920s, Stalin planned to invade Western Europe in order to initiate the "World Revolution." The outbreak of war between Germany and the Western Allies in 1939 gave Stalin the opportunity to prepare an attack against Europe which was unparalleled in history both in terms of Stalin's far-reaching goals as well as in terms of the amount of troops and armaments amassed at the Soviet border. Of course, Stalin's aggressive intentions did not escape Germany's notice who in turn planned a preventive strike against the Red Army. However, the Germans obviously underestimated both the strength of the Red Army and the determination of its leaders. What unfolded in June 1941 was undoubtedly the most-cruel war in history. Dr. Hoffmann's book shows in detail how Stalin and his Bolshevik henchman used unimaginable violence and atrocities to break any resistance in the Red Army and to force their unwilling soldiers to fight against the Germans who were anticipated as liberators from Stalinist oppression by most Russians. Stalin ordered not only to kill all German POWs, but also to kill Soviet soldiers who fell into German hands alive, because they failed to fight to their death. Dr. Hoffmann also explains how Soviet propagandists incited their soldiers to unlimited hatred against everything German, and he gives the reader a short but extremely unpleasant glimpse into what happened when these Soviet soldiers, dehumanized by Soviet propaganda and brutality, finally reached German soil in 1945: A gigantic wave of looting, arson, rape, torture, and mass murder befell East Germany. After reading this book, the world should thank the German Army that they prevented Stalin from succeeding with his plans of World Revolution, despite all the wrongdoings the Germans committed themselves. An indispensable book for all students of World War II as it actually happened, as well as a revisionist classic that has shaken anti-German propagandists to the marrow.

"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews. . . . An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." — New York Times Book Review The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of the Holocaust, the most systematic and sustained of modern genocides. The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. In this unparalleled work—based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs—the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler began what would be the most important campaign of the European theater. The war against the Soviet Union would leave tens of millions of Soviet citizens dead and large parts of the country in ruins. The death and destruction would result not just from military operations but also from the systematic killing and abuse that the German army, police, and SS directed against Jews, Communists, and ordinary citizens. In War of Annihilation, noted military historian Geoffrey P. Megargee provides a clear, concise history of the Germans' opening campaign of conquest and genocide in 1941. By drawing on the best of military and Holocaust scholarship, Megargee dispels the myths that have distorted the role of Germany's military leadership in both the military operations themselves and the unthinkable crimes that were part of them.

This volume comprises 11 essays--most of them revised versions of lectures given 1996-1997 at the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg--by German historians of the younger generation (all born since 1951). The purpose of the lecture series was to "leave behind the stale and rigid terms of Holocaust scholarship and public discussion of the issue" (from the editor's foreword). The essays, focusing on Poland, the Soviet Union, Serbia, and France, aim to identify the impulses that drove German activities in each area and to identify how various political goals and ideological convictions combined to produce policy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This edition is the first of its kind to offer a basic collection of facsimile, English language, historical articles on all aspects of the extermination of the European Jews. A total of 300 articles from 84 journals and collections allows the reader to gain an overview of this field. The edition both provides access to the immense, rich array of scholarly articles published after 1960 on the history of the Holocaust and encourages critical assessment of conflicting interpretations of these horrifying events. The series traces Nazi persecution of Jews before the implementation of the "Final Solution", demonstrates how the Germans coordinated anti-Jewish activities in conquered territories, and sheds light on the victims in concentration camps, ending with the liberation of the concentration camp victims and articles on the trials of war criminals. The publications covered originate from the years 1950 to 1987. Included are authors such as Jakob Katz, Saul Friedländer, Eberhard Jäckel, Bruno Bettelheim and Herbert A. Strauss.