Holocaust. The Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews

A comprehensive re-examination of the most horrific episode of the twentieth century Shows just how central anti-semitic ideology was to the unfolding of Nazi policy Focuses clearly on the perpetrators and the reasons why they made the decisions they did Makes a large amount of important new research accessible to the general reader Makes Longerich's widely acclaimed German-language book on the Holocaust available for the general reader for the first time 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 invasion of 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.