The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution

by Richard Breitman

Overview

Among the Nazi leaders, Heinrich Himmler was, as Richard Breitman observes in this ground- breaking study, an easy man to underestimate—short, pudgy, near-sighted, chinless. Yet Himmler holds a peculiarly memorable place in the roster of Nazi war criminals: he was the man most closely associated with the creation and operation of the Final Solution, the programme of formal mass murder responsible for the deaths of six million Jews in death camps. Thus, to understand the Holocaust it is first necessary to understand Himmler, and it is this The Architect of Genocide at last permits us to do. Drawing on thousands of published and unpublished sources—ranging from the Nuremburg War Crimes trial records to papers held in the Central State Archives of the October Revolution of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev—Breitman shows us the man himself, growing from unlikeable boyhood to be the perfect bureaucrat, seemingly the antithesis of the mad policies he espoused. At the same time, with unchallengeable authority, he presents us with the hitherto mysterious and much—debated facts about the origins of those policies, establishing among other things that before the war, Himmler had plans to murder all German Jews who would not- or could not—leave the country and that as early as 1939, Himmler was considering the use of gas chambers and crematoriums.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684581634
Publisher:	Brandeis University Press
Publication date:	11/07/2022
Series:	The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	348
File size:	811 KB

About the Author

RICHARD BREITMAN is the author or co-author of nine books and many articles in German history, U. S. history, and the Holocaust. Breitman teaches at American University and is editor of the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He served as director of historical research for the Nazi War Criminal Records and Imperial Japanese Records Interagency Working Group, which helped to bring about declassification of more than eight million pages of U.S. government records under a 1998 law.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Hitler, Himmler, and the SS 2. Plans for German Jews 3. Tannenberg 4. Racial Planning and Euthanasia 5. Racial Education and the Military 6. To Madagascar and Back 7. Toward the Final Solution 8. Cleansing the New Empire 9. Heydrich's Plan 10. Rivals into Collaborators 11. Wannsee and Beyond Epilogue: Himmler in Retrospect Notes Glossary of Titles and Special Terms Archival Collections Index

What People are Saying About This

Yehuda Bauer

“A truly path-breaking book, one of the few that will have a lasting impact on historical research of the period. It shows both the primacy of Hitler as the motivating force in the mass murder, and the way in which his initiatives were accepted and internalized by the SS, on the basis of ideology.”

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

“Breitman’s book is decisively important... [It] should serve for years to come as required reading for all who wish to make sense of the Holocaust.”

Editorial Reviews

Looking nothing like the Nordic ideal he advocated, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, was short, flabby and balding--his dull, pedantic exterior disguising the caustic, cowardly, Machiavellian, immensely cruel master of deceit within. Breitman, history professor at the American University in Washington, D.C., presents compelling evidence that the extermination of Jews was an early goal of Himmler, a Bavarian and lapsed Catholic, and his boss Adolf Hitler. Drawing on previously untapped German records, as well as other source materials, Breitman contends that the Nazi leadership crystallized its plan for mass destruction of the Jews as early as March 1941--months earlier than most historians have assumed. This engrossing, detailed study constitutes a powerful refutation of revisionist scholars who claim that Hitler did not plan the Final Solution in advance but instead improvised it out of either military or political frustration. History Book Club alternate. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Using all available sources, Breitman carefully traces the role of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, in developing Nazi Germany's Final Solution, the killing of six million Jews. Breitman rejects recent claims that the Final Solution was last-minute improvisation, presenting the unfolding of a plan intended from the beginning. His task is not easy, because Himmler took care not to leave a paper trail. Though at first the reader is lulled by the low-key, professionally detached narration, horror piles upon horror and documentation accumulates relentlessly as the Holocaust takes shape, piece by chilling piece, between 1931 and 1942. Not an air-tight argument, but essential for academic collections, and recommended for all collections of any size. BOMC and History Book Club alternates.-- Nancy Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington

Library Journal

This decisively important book should serve for years to come as required reading for all who wish to make sense of the Holocaust.”—The Nation

“Breitman’s book is decisively important... [It] should serve for years to come as required reading for all who wish to make sense of the Holocaust.”—Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, The New Republic

“A truly path-breaking book, one of the few that will have a lasting impact on historical research of the period. It shows both the primacy of Hitler as the motivating force in the mass murder, and the way in which his initiatives were accepted and internalized by the SS, on the basis of ideology.”—Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

“Breitman’s research [is] meticulous. Especially valuable are his novel insights into the full and frequent communication between Himmler and Hitler, who, it is known, seldom signed an order.”—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher