The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution - Softcover

Browning, Christopher R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521426952 ISBN 13: 9780521426954

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1992

Synopsis

The Path to Genocide studies three aspects of the events leading up to the Final Solution in Nazi Germany. First, Nazi's "solutions" to their self-imposed "Jewish problem" before resorting to mass-murder are examined, specifically ghettoization and early resettlement plans to expel Jews to Eastern Poland or the island of Madagascar. Second, the responsibility of shaping Nazi Jewish policy is shown to extend to the lower and middle echelon of government, through accommodation and conformity of a wide variety of perpetrators, including bureaucrats, doctors and policemen. Finally the role of Adolf Hitler in the decisionmaking process is examined, with a historiographical analysis of other accounts of his role. Browning argues that while Hitler did not operate according to a premeditated plan or blueprint, he did make the key decisions. This volume of essays provides perspectives on German Jewish policy both from the bottom of the government apparatus and from the top.

About this title

Book Description

The Nazi Holocaust haunts the modern imagination as one of the most compelling examples of the human capacity for organized atrocity. This authoritative account of Nazi Jewish policy seeks to determine what actually happened between the outbreak of war and the emergence of the Final Solution.

Review

"...a handy stocktaking of scholarship on some key questions about the Holocaust." Central European History

"...the clarity as well as economy with which he writes, his firm grasp of the evidence and the balanced judgment he brings to its interpretation make this a most impressive performance....[Browning] uses his flair for uncovering new archival material to throw light on the attitudes and roles of a variety of people who became invlved in carrying out the Final Solution....Christopher Browning places himself in the front rank of historians of the Holocaust." Times Literary Supplement

"...well written, densely footnoted, and a significant contribution to understanding the critical events that led to the gas chambers." German Studies Review

"A magisterial, rigorously meditated study of how the industrialized murder of millions got under way." The New York Times Book Review

"...an impressive collection of essays by one of the foremost historians of the Holocaust." Dimensions

"Browning's arguments provide a sensible balance to those interpretations of the origins of the Holocaust that have focused exclusively on either Hitler or the Nazi system." Johnpeter Horst Grill, History

"A meticulously researched, harrowing look at the evil humanity is capable of." Doug Wyatt, Savannah (GA) News/Press

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521426952
• ISBN 13: 9780521426954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 204