Nazism 1919-1945, Volume 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination

Nazism #3

by Jeremy Noakes (Editor), Geoffrey Pridham

Volume 3 of this series of documents with commentary contains a systematic documentation of the Nazi programmes of racial and eugenic extermination, including a case study of the occupation of Poland. There is a general account of the Nazi empire and of the development of German occupation policies, and the book also covers German foreign policy 1933-1945. The documents in the four volumes of this series are drawn from a wide range of sources - official and party documents, memoirs, letters, diaries and newspapers - and are linked with a commentary. The combination of documents and commentary represents at the same time a textbook, a contribution to scholarship and a source book for students and historians.

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

Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Mervyn Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's difficult to know what to write really. I've read a lot of WWII books and books about the Holocaust, but no matter how many times I read this stuff I am still staggered by the cruelty and barbarism of the Nazis. The euthanasia program was simply horrific. Starving to death thousands of mentally and physically ill people - men, women and children - and celebrating when they reached their ten thousandth victim. Then, of course, there's the Holocaust. The documents are almost beyond imagination. Take that of Hermann Friedrich Graebe, an eyewitness to a mass shooting of Jews in the Ukraine. Fifteen hundred shot a day. Just in that one place. Families having to strip naked in front of one another and then lay on dead bodies to be murdered. One of the murderers swinging his legs and smoking a cigarette as he casually dispatches another twenty people. Graebe's account is easy to find online. I urge people to read it if they don't want to read the whole book.

The page numbers in this book carry on from the previous volume, so this volume starts on p.609.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good collection of sources, translated into English where necessary, that cover the foreign and racial policies of the Nazis from their inception to their defeat. Although one must always be a bit careful of using such anthologies over the originals, the choosing of the sources is well done and reasonably comprehensive, and context is provided by the editorial narrative running throughout the book. It is certainly the easiest way to access such a range of primary sources in the English language.

[Vheissu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good annotated sampling of German and other primary documents.