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Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
In Masters of Death, Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen’s role in the Holocaust. These “special task forces,” organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 19...more
ebook, 368 pages
Published
December 18th 2007
by Vintage
(first published 2002)
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WARNING! This book is very graphic and disturbing. It is truly a horror story of a different sort.
After reading this book, I once told someone, "If a movie were made about this book, without being edited for content, it would be very difficult to watch. It is that graphic and horrifying." MASTERS OF DEATH begins innocently enough, drops you right in the middle of the Holocaust, and shows you the true face of evil.
After reading this book, I once told someone, "If a movie were made about this book, without being edited for content, it would be very difficult to watch. It is that graphic and horrifying." MASTERS OF DEATH begins innocently enough, drops you right in the middle of the Holocaust, and shows you the true face of evil.
Surprisingly, this was a very quick read. A patron returned it, I picked up around 10 a.m. and was finished around 10 p.m.
If it is a subject in which one would not be interested, the read probably wouldn't be as quick. However, the Einsatzgruppen are often a glossed over subject in world history (unless you took a class specifically on the Holocaust). Rhodes does an absolutely excellent job of portraying both those who were ruthless and relentless in their kills to the people who had more troubl...more
If it is a subject in which one would not be interested, the read probably wouldn't be as quick. However, the Einsatzgruppen are often a glossed over subject in world history (unless you took a class specifically on the Holocaust). Rhodes does an absolutely excellent job of portraying both those who were ruthless and relentless in their kills to the people who had more troubl...more
This is certainly a well written and well researched book on an interesting subject. At his best, Rhodes is a masterful popular historian and I've yet to read a duff book by him. However, I did find it a little same-y as I read the book. We're treated to descriptions of one appalling massacre after another, then another, then another, and after a while they were hard to distinguish in my memory. Although they are described well, and it's hard to see how the book could have been written different...more
Anyone who considers himself a Holocaust historian--or anyone who enjoys reading of the Holocaust for knowledge and remembrance's sake--needs to pick up this book at some point in his life. This book is both easy to read yet nearly unbearable to get through. Rhodes makes a clear argument of how the Einsatzgruppen were able to kill as many people as they did--using Lonnie Athens' theory of violent-socialization--through mass shootings and other executions. He draws from an historical record compr...more
Thoroughly depressing as one would expect. It is mostly about the psychotic nature of the Einsatzgruppen. The most morbidly interesting parts were about how members of the Einsatzgruppen lost their minds because of all the killing they were doing. This ofcourse necessitated the more industrial methods of the Final Solution. Sickening.
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Masters of Death: The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust recounts the history of mass shootings in Eastern Europe that preceded the development of concentration camps. It describes some events that defy belief--the murder of a hundred small children by shooting, the use of quicklime to chemically burn people to death. It is a gruesome book, but I found it to be too much like a text book. There wasn’t much detail on survivors, partially because almost no one escaped these mass s...more
Rhodes provides an in-depth and moving account of the actions of the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe and Russia during World War II. He examines everything from organization to motives behind killing to psychological damage. Of particular note are the two chapters that he devotes to the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, which gives the reader a better understanding of Himmler's childhood and decisions made in adulthood.
Rhodes is incredibly detailed in his descriptions of individual killing act...more
Rhodes is incredibly detailed in his descriptions of individual killing act...more
One of the most difficult books I've read. Reviews had told me that it was gruesome -- too gruesome for some to finish. One reader couldn't get past page 30. But I bought it, read it (about thirty minutes at a time; no more), and finished it for one simple reason: I wanted to know. I wanted to know the name of every Jew that died by bullets, by beating, by gas, by burning alive, by suffocating beneath the bodies in the mass graves. It kills me that I will never know them all. That I will never k...more
I am having trouble trying to decide between giving 3 or 4 stars, but I have come to the conclusion that if I can’t decide if it’s worthy or not of 4 then it probably isn’t. Rhodes provides a variably detailed recap of the atrocities carried out by Himmler and his Eastern Front SS however in many ways the work reads like the back of a baseball card, which I agree with in many ways because in order for the reader to get their arms around the topic, they need to see beyond the vivid gore to unders...more
Lords of Life and Death: 'Masters of Death' by Richard Rhodes is the disturbing account of the SS-Einsatzgruppen death squads that roamed the occupied territories of the eastern front of WW2. They were tasked with the liquidation of all Jews, as well as other enemies of the Third Reich such as partisans, gypsies, and communists. These death squads preceded the death camps that usually come to mind when speaking of the holocaust. Before the gas chambers and crematoriums, victims were simply round...more
This was a really good, detailed account of the Einsatzgruppen's destruction of the Eastern Jewish population. I liked how instead of just giving accounts of what happened, Rhodes looked at the psychology of the perpetrators. I think many people ask "How could people do that to each other?" when reading about the Holocaust. Rhodes attempts to explain the psychology behind the mass murderers. I found this very thorough without being too dense and detailed. I read Saul Friedlander's The Exterminat...more
Rhodes, Richard. MASTERS OF DEATH: THE SS EINSATZGRUPPEN AND THE INVENTION OF THE HOLOCAUST. (2002). No *.
After about fifty pages into this history, I could no longer go on. The descriptions of the violence were too graphic for me. A previous book that I read by this author, “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” won a Pulitzer Prize. I don’t think that this one will receive a very wide audience.
After about fifty pages into this history, I could no longer go on. The descriptions of the violence were too graphic for me. A previous book that I read by this author, “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” won a Pulitzer Prize. I don’t think that this one will receive a very wide audience.
This books provides a lot of excerpts that happened in east/west Germany with regard to the "resettlement" of Jews. Very good and concise history of how Jews were treated. If you had read "Commandant Auschwitz" by Rudolph Hoes, you can partly understand the attitude & behaviour of German soldiers towards Jews. Overall a must read for anyone interested to know the Holocaust better.
Rhodes delivers a book like few others, the sheer horrific nature of the subject is delivered in such a way that pulls at your soul. A difficult book to read at times but a must for all if only to remind us why it can never happen again. Rhodes gives a masterful mix of fact and firsthand accounts from both sides and delves into the question how can humanity visit the horror of the holocaust on itself.
This book is definitely not for the faint of heart! Little has been written about the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis' mobile killing squads, in large part because their story is so gruesome. One passage that stood out particularly in my mind was a story about how a bunch of Jews, including women and children, were pushed into a pit and then slaked lime was poured over them. Slaked lime is a powerful corrosive and these people essentially dissolved while fully alive. Their sufferings were so awful tha...more
This book brilliantly explores one of the darkest chapters in human history and is not for the delicate or squeamish. Rhodes casts an unblinking eye on the abhorrent horror of the SS Einsatzgruppen and all the vulgar barbarity they brought down on the Jews and many other groups as the preyed behind the front lines of the Wehrmacht. Having studied the history of both world wars is some detail, Rhodes enlightens a dark abyss for the reader to understand how the "masters of death" carried out and j...more
I am currently writing a book that involves the Einsatzgruppen and this book was a veritable goldmine of information. It feels really strange to write something that positive even related to a topic this dark. The sections about Himmler, while I realize were somewhat important to explaining who this man was, I felt were irrelevant to the general subject matter. I wanted to know more about men like August Hafner and Paul Blobel. However, I realize that a lot of that sort of information probably j...more
DISTURBING! but well written. This needs to be read by students of the period. How can human being become so inhumane? The Nazi's were more concerned about what effect the act of killing was having on their killers than what was happening to an unimaginable number of innocent people.
May 03, 2012
Julia
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
philosophy-social-studies-religion
Parts of this book were assigned for one of my IR classes. I did not read all of it, because it is so emotionally heavy, I found it impossible. The Author is a superb historian, and I admire him for being willing tell and attempt to understand such horrendous human actions.
This book, while INCREDIBLY DISTURBING, provides a great deal of psychological insight into some of the perpetrators of the holocaust. Fair warning, it's basically the most graphic and disturbing book I've ever read.
A very disturbing and violent read. Millions of unarmed men, women and children were brutality murdered...Richard Rhodes forces the reader to look at what that meant not only for individual victims and their families but also how it affected the people doing the killing. He forces you to continue watching long after you decide it’s time to turn and run...
This work reminded me of "This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by
Tadeusz Borowski that I read in the 1970s.
This work reminded me of "This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by
Tadeusz Borowski that I read in the 1970s.
Interesting Book on how the Holocaust got started and how Himmler came to run the Final Solution. Found the book to be full of very good facts and pieces of info from thr Nurenburg trials I would recommend this book to people who are interesting in learning more about the Hoocaust.
Sep 25, 2012
Robert
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
world-war-ii,
ss-and-gestapo
A good history regarding the SS and the Holocaust, but very disturbing. The victorious Allies were entirely too lenient with those bastards. They should have hanged them all.
A thorough treatment on one of the most horrific subjects of the Second World War. Richard Rhodes did a superb job in researching his topic. Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. **Warning**: This book is graphic and highly disturbing.
Magnificent and harrowing. An indispensable examination of the "malefic". I have read it no less than four times.
The horror truth of the Nazi period. Brilliantly wrote by Rhodes. One of my favorites of all time.
It is a good work but too brief to include much information in the subject matter area.
Oh my goodness. Read this in college. Unbelievable look at the SS during WWII.
very dark; learning how significant the role of the Einsatzgruppen was in the Holocaust.
Horrible topic, but well researched and well- written.
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Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation a...more
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