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Title: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust by Richard Rhodes ISBN: 0-375-40900-9 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.39 (33 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Disturbing. Lest We Forget.
Comment: This chilling study brings home to the reader the reality of how the genocide of the Jews and others 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 of murderers known as the "Einsatzgruppen".
Units which were formed by Himmler and Heydrich immediately before the invasion of the East/Soviet Union and which followed the advancing German Armies.
"In depth" is a term that is perhaps sometimes mis-used, but it is deeply appropriate when applied here to this disturbing, detailed study of what can only be described as "cold blooded murder" by these SS murder squads.
This thoroughly researched and extremely well written book is at times a "heavy" and "difficult" read. Nevertheless it is indeed a major contribution towards the study of the Nazi Holocaust which describes the construction and utilisation of these Nazi murder squads.
Units cited in this work as often consisting of many professional, "educated" men such as lawyers, doctors, architects etc., and who participated in an acutely "personal" manner of murder where some 1.5 million men, women and children were barbarically executed by shooting.
The bodies of their victims described as then being disposed of in "killing pits" (often anti-tank ditches, natural ravines or freshly dug pits). Many of the mass graves each containing many thousands of innocent victims, frequently shot one by one and buried layer upon layer. Many of these graves are still marked as memorials to this day. Photographs of some are included in this book.
One such massacre described in the book is that at Babi Yar. A ravine where Jewish men, women, and children were systematically machine-gunned in a two-day orgy of execution.
Here the Jews in their thousands, with such pathetic belongings as they could carry, were herded into barbed-wire areas at the top of the ravine, guarded by Ukrainian collaborators. There they were stripped of their clothes and beaten, then led in irregular squads down the side of the ravine. The first groups were forced to lie on the ground, face down, and were machine-gunned by the Germans who kept up a steady volley. Their bodies were covered with thin layers of earth and the next groups were ordered to lie over them, to be similarly murdered. To carry out the murder of 34,000 human beings in the space of two days in such a manner is difficult to comprehend. Indeed, much of this book is so disturbing that it is frequently only possible to read in small sections at a time.
Photographs are 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 task of these Units was to kill the Jews on the spot - but not only Jews; communists, Gypsies, political leaders, and the intelligentsia were also killed. 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 slaughter 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 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 also 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 necessary addition to anyone's library on the Holocaust. Recommended.
Rating: 4
Summary: A necessary heart-rip
Comment: To read this book is to glimpse into the abyss of hell itself. To read this book is to experience pain at the deepest level of one's being. The pictures of the helpless, naked women and children are almost unbearable. Anyone with his sanity and sense of compassion intact will burn with profound empathy and tremble with violence at these accounts of pure nightmare. Page after page of heartless savagery and nameless graves...
The criminological background of the author brings a much-needed interpretive edge, providing insight to unspeakable monstrosity. This should be required reading.
Rating: 4
Summary: Evil Men.
Comment: There is no excuse. The guys from SS were simply evil men. There's no reasonable explanation for the killing they did against civilians, women and children.
Well, you can argue that the United States did the same when droping the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagazaky...
In short, war is hell, but the metodic killing of millions of people was something never heard about in the history of mankind, and that was executed by a people (the German people) teoretically highly developed, lovers of philisophy, arts and music. It's simply unbeliavable.
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Title: The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor ISBN: 0142002801 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 by Richard Overy ISBN: 0142001589 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor ISBN: 0140284583 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration by Mark Roseman ISBN: 0805068104 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military by Bryan Mark Rigg ISBN: 0700611789 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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