Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

A comprehensive history of the Nazi persecution and murder of European Jews, paying detailed attention to an unrivalled range sources.Focusing clearly on the perpetrators and exploring closely the process of decision making, Longerich argues that anti-Semitism was not a mere by-product of the Nazis' political mobilization or an attempt to deflect the attention of the masses, but that anti-Jewish policy was a central tenet of the Nazi movement's attempts to implement, disseminate, and secure National Socialist rule - and one which crucially shaped Nazi policy decisions, from their earliest days in power through to the invasionof the Soviet Union and the Final Solution.As Longerich shows, the 'disappearance' of Jews was designed as a first step towards a racially homogeneous society - first within the 'Reich', later in the whole of a German-dominated Europe.

Genres: History, Holocaust, World War II, Nonfiction, Germany, War, German Literature

659 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2009

About the author

Peter Longerich is a German professor of history. He is currently director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and Twentieth-Century History at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Reviews

[Ramsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longerich's book, an updated translation of his 1998 study Politik der Vernichtung, is an excellent single-volume academic history of the Holocaust focusing on the decision-making of the Nazis. The book is at its best when it engages in academic debate: for instance, Longerich rejects the clean distinction drawn by some historians between "territorial" solutions (in which the Jews would be deported to a reservation in Poland, former Soviet territory in the East or Madagascar) and the "final solution phase" in which genocide was actively pursued. Rather, Longerich situates the territorial solutions within the context of the final solution: the stated goal of the territorial solutions was to isolate the Jews geographically, deprive them of adequate resources and food and exterminate them, through starvation, disease and low birth rates, over a couple of generations. Thus, the intent to exterminate the Jews was present from 1939; what changed as the war radicalized the Nazi regime was the time frame for the completion of the extermination.

Longerich's writing is dense--at times it feels as if he is reconstructing the Holocaust on a massacre-by-massacre, deportation-by-deportation basis. It also assumes a familiarity with leading figures in the Nazi regime who are not as widely known, such as Heydrich, Streicher, Rosenberg, Greiser, and Frank, and assumes the reader understands what is happening in the war at given points in time. Focusing as it does on the perpetrators and their decision-making and processes, Longerich's study lacks the visceral impact of more victim-oriented works on the Holocaust. Nonetheless, if one wants to know how this greatest of crimes came to pass, Longerich's is the most convincingly argued book I have read on the subject.

[Stephen Selbst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and detailed analysis of how the Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust. Longerich starts with the Nazis' pre-war seizure of power and demonstrates how their anti-Semitic policies became progressively more radical. The same dynamic, he argues, continued through the war. The Nazis' original plan, he writes, was to deport all of the Jews of the Reich to an unspecified destination in Russia and to deal with them after the end of the war.. But in the war in Poland and the early part of the war in Russia, the. Einsatzgruppen began their systematic policy of mass murder, which began to be devastatingly successful.. Longerich them makes it clear that it is unlikely that there was ever a single order by Hitler or anyone else to exterminate the European Jews. Rather, it became increasingly apparent that the annihilation of the Jews would not necessarily need to wait until the end of the war, that it could be pursued while the war continued.That dynamic, he argues, is what led to the Holocaust during the war.

This book is backed by obvious research and careful analysis. It is the epitome of careful and serious scholarship. It is grim reading but an excellent analysis of how the Nazis conducted the Holocaust.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very objective review od the increasing escalation of the Nazi Judenpolitik during the pre-war and wartime periods. Longerich catalogues in great detail the increasing ferocity and magnitude of the murder of the Jews of Europe. He underlines that this was only possible with the active participation of the governements of the occupied territories. Where this was not forthcoming the extermination was not able to be completed.

Despite the dry nature of the prose the horror of the advance of the implacable Nazi killing machine cannot fail to give the reader sleepless nights.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't a "bad" book, but given its genesis as an academic work, it is dry and often boring, swimming in detail. It is not for general reading. It examines the origins of the Final Solution in stages from 1939 to around 1943, then briefly recounts the events to the end of the war. The central thesis is that broad direction was given from "the top" and interpreted locally by high-level civilian, SS and military leaders, and that it evolved in stages, with the Holocaust gaining momentum as the war went on. Some intensifiers were the Allied Torch landings in North Africa (Nov. 1942), Stalingrad and the loss of German offensive momentum (1942/43), and Operation Husky in Sicily (July 1943). Longerich repeats the well-know fact that the deportations were most successful in areas were the German military's presence was heaviest, and where the local population provided support (especially the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Netherlands and France). Where there was a lighter occupation presence, and local resistance a lower proportion of Jews were deported (e.g. Belgium and Denmark).
Anyway, this book is for Holocaust origin scholars only.

[Clayton Brannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most comprehensive book you will ever read on the Holocaust. Well documented and well written. He starts with an extensive look at the roots of anti-semitism in the Weimar Republic and goes forward in an easy to read time line of the events that followed, paying especially close attention to the motives of the NAZI regime and how they led to what they called the Final Solution. A must read for all who have an interest in NAZI Germany.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides all the evidence anyone would need to explain the WWII atrocities collectively known as The Holocaust to anyone who is intellectually dishonest enough to say it never happened.

It wasn't called The Holocaust during the war.

Germans had to know the euphemisms final solution, aryanization, Madagascar, resettlement in the east, special treatment, to each his own, or work sets you free were disingenuous code words for murder.

[LRKK · Rating 4 out of 5]

An openly academic contribution, this is a carefully reasoned and well-supported argument, essentially focussed on ‘when-and-by-whom’ the decisions that culminated in the Final Solution were made. Not the place to begin reading about the Holocaust, but a meaningful contribution to those familiar with the subject.

[Alex Kramer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, this book did a better job at putting me to sleep than my actual prescribed sleep medicines do. Thank God I'm finished with this, I had to read it for class. While it was informational it was the most boring thing I have ever read probably and duller than a plastic knife.

[Walter F · Rating 4 out of 5]

As more works are translated and made available, this book is a top example of the horrible truths of the German population's participation in the holocaust.