Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust: Collected Essays from the Colloquium at the City University of New Ourk Graduate Center

by David Bankier (Editor), Gerhard L. Weinberg (Introduction)

When and how did the Allies find out about the Holocaust, and what were the intelligence sources that delivered the information? This fundamental collection of research studies digs deeply into that sensitive topic and sheds new light on the realities of code-breaking and understanding of what was happening in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War. Documents with their sources have been assembled from many previously closed archives. Includes a preface by David Bankier and an introductory essay by Gerhard L. Weinberg, along with the following international scholars of the Second World War and the David Alvarez, Shlomo Aronson, Peter R. Black, Richard Breitman, Hilary Earl, Tuvia Friling, Norman J.W. Goda, Robert Hanyok, Sébastien Laurent, Katrin Paehler, Stephen Tyas, and Piotr Wrobel.

Genres: Holocaust

379 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely interesting volume consisting of 13 essays on the topic of sources and analysis of intelligence by the Allies, the Nazis, the Vatican, and the nascent Jewish State during WW2. Regarding the Holocaust and mass killings/starvation/ill-treatment of residents/detainees by the Nazis in general, much was known, unfortunately, but not prioritized/acted upon, as the focus of intelligence gathering was to direct the war effort. This is the overall reason why there weren't more efforts to either rescue or disrupt the organized/mass murders occurring in Nazi occupied territories.

The US and Western Europeans must remain eternally grateful to the monumental effort and sacrifice of the Soviets in turning back the Nazi tide in Russia and E. Europe. Considering the cost in Russian blood to defeat the Nazis, the US lend-lease program directed toward the Russian effort was a key "investment" in a future of peace on the European continent.

The Russians were involved in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance organizing effort - also had Commissars throughout Poland while Poland was under Nazi control, the subject of one of the essays in the volume. Although Russia had previously sold out Poland in '39, divvying up the country with the Nazis, after the Nazis invaded the Baltic states/Russia (Barbarossa) the Russians sent scores of operatives into Poland to organize. As the liberators of Poland and other E. European countries in '45, it is no surprise that for approximately 45 years, these nations remained allied with the USSR, until the implosion of the USSR and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact etc., end of the "iron curtain" etc. The entire roll-back of Nazi hegemony from SE Europe to the Baltic states, was a result of unimaginable sacrifice of Russian fighting men and women.