In the Name of Humanity - Softcover

Wallace, Max

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143194925 ISBN 13: 9780143194927

Publisher: Penguin Canada, 2018

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize

The untold true story of the secret negotiations—by the most unlikely figures—to end the Holocaust 

On November 25, 1944, prisoners at Auschwitz heard a deafening explosion. Emerging from their barracks, they witnessed the crematoria and gas chambers—part of the largest killing machine in human history—come crashing down. Most assumed they had fallen victim to inmate sabotage and thousands silently cheered. However, the Final Solution's most efficient murder apparatus had not been felled by Jews, but rather by the ruthless architect of mass genocide, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. It was an edict that has puzzled historians for more than six decades.
Holocaust historian and New York Times bestselling author Max Wallace—a veteran interviewer for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation—draws on an explosive cache of recently declassified documents and an account from the only living eyewitness to unravel the mystery. He uncovers an astounding story involving the secret negotiations of an unlikely trio—a former fascist President of Switzerland, a courageous Orthodox Jewish woman, and Himmler's Finnish osteopath—to end the Holocaust, aided by clandestine Swedish and American intelligence efforts. He documents their efforts to deceive Himmler, who, as Germany's defeat loomed, sought to enter an alliance with the West against the Soviet Union. By exploiting that fantasy and persuading Himmler to betray Hitler's orders, the group helped to prevent the liquidation of tens of thousands of Jews during the last months of the Second World War, and thwarted Hitler's plan to take "every last Jew" down with the Reich.
Deeply researched and dramatically recounted, In the Name of Humanity is a remarkable tale of bravery and audacious tactics that will help rewrite the history of the Holocaust.

About this title

About the Author

MAX WALLACE is the author of four books, including The American Axis, about the Nazi affiliations of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, which was endorsed by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Wallace is the former Executive Director of the Anne & Max Bailey Center for Holocaust Studies, and from 1996 to 2000 worked for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation, documenting the video testimonies of Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the Sunday New York Times and the BBC, and has appeared on The Today Show and Dateline NBC. He lives in Toronto.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Norbert Masur had traveled from Sweden [to Berlin] as a representative of the World Jewish Congress to meet the man who had almost singlehandedly been responsible for the decimation of his people. If the Führer, holed up in his bunker, were to discover that a member of the hated race was waiting nearby to meet with his most powerful lieutenant, the consequences would almost certainly be catastrophic. As Masur waited, he had no idea of the events that had led to this improbable journey, nor the role played by an ultra-Orthodox woman he had never heard of in bringing about his fateful mission … Masur’s mission, then, was no less than preventing the imminent extinction of [the remaining] European Jewry. The burden weighed heavily on him as he spent the day awaiting an unlikely encounter that few could have imagined possible. When he was still waiting at midnight, however, it appeared that his trip had been undertaken in vain. Finally, at precisely 2:30 a.m., he heard a car pull up. As the front door opened, Norbert Masur came face-to-face with the devil."

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Canada
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0143194925
• ISBN 13: 9780143194927
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464