With authority and insight, Mengele examines the entire life of the world's most infamous doctor.

    He was personally responsible for transporting over two million Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps. This is the first account of Eichmann's life to appear since the aftermath of his famous trial in 1961 and his subsequent execution in Jerusalem a year later. It reveals that the depiction of Eichmann as a loser who drifted into the ranks of the SS is a fabrication that conceals Eichmann's considerable abilities and his early political development. Drawing on recently unearthed documents, David Cesarani shows how Eichmann became the Reich's "expert" on Jewish matters and reveals his initially cordial working relationship with Zionist Jews in Germany, despite his intense anti-Semitism. Cesarani explains how the massive ethnic cleansing Eichmann conducted in Poland in 1939-40 was the crucial bridge to his later role in the mass deportation of the Jews. And Cesarani argues controversially that Eichmann was not necessarily predisposed to mass murder, exploring the remarkable, largely unknown period in Eichmann's early career when he first learned how to become an administrator of genocide. This challenging work deepens our understanding of Adolf Eichmann and offers fresh insights both into the operation of the Final Solution and the making of its most notorious perpetrator.

         Anyone with even a passing interest in the Second World War knows about the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. There was even a Tom Cruise movie. But the story of the great wave of resistance that arose in the year that followed--with far-reaching consequences--has never been told before.     Drawing on newly opened archives, acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that many high-ranking Nazis, and average German citizens in far greater numbers than previously recognized, reacted defiantly to the Fuhrer's by then manifest insanity. Together they spared cities from being razed, and prevented the needless obliteration of industry and infrastructure. Disobeying Hitler presents new evidence on three direct violations of orders made personally by Adolf Hitler: The refusal by the commander of Paris to destroy the city; Albert Speer's refusal to implement a scorched earth policy in Germany; and the failure to defend Hamburg against invading British forces.      In gripping, story-driven style, Disobeying Hitler shows how the brave resistence of soldiers and civilians, under constant threat of death, was crucial for the outcome of the war. Their bravery saved countless lives and helped lay the foundations for European economic recovery--and continued peace

    Sebald completed this controversial book before his death in December 2001. On the Natural History of Destruction is his harrowing and precise investigation of one of the least examined silences of our time. In it, the novelist examines the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment and the reasons for the astonishing absence of this unprecedented trauma from German history and culture. This historical void is in part a repression of things -- such as the death by fire of the city of Hamburg at the hands of the RAF -- too terrible to bear. But rather than record the crises about them, writers sought to retrospectively justify their actions under the Nazis. For Sebald, this is an example of deliberate cultural amnesia. His analysis of its effects in and outside Germany has already provoked angry painful debate. Sebald's novels are rooted in meticulous observation. His essays are novelistic. They include his childhood recollections of the war that spurred his horror at the collective amnesia around him. There are moments of black humor and, throughout, the sensitivity of his intelligence. This book is a study of suffering and forgetting, of the morality hidden in artistic decisions, and of both compromised and genuine heroics.

    As the 3rd Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest & genocide, IBM & its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification & cataloging programs of the 30s to the selections of the 40s. Only after Jews were identified--a massively complex task Hitler wanted done immediately--could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor & annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation & organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 30s no computer existed. But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed & constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate the persecution of the Jews.Historians were amazed at the speed & accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify & locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany & then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations & ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads & organizing of concentration camp slave labor. IBM & its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, anticipating the Reich's needs. They didn't merely sell the machines & walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees & became the sole source of the billions of punch cards needed. IBM & the Holocaust details the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the 3rd Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters & the Geneva intermediaries--all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution & destruction. Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit. Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany's war against the Jews: how Hitler got the names.

    In its every turn and crease, it bears the marks of the true." --Irving Howe, New Republic"This remarkable memoir...is the autobiography of an extraordinarily acute conscience. With the ear of a poet and the eye of a novelist, Amery vividly communicates the wonder of a philosopher--a wonder here aroused by the 'dark riddle' of the Nazi regime and its systematic sadism." --Jim Miller, Newsweek"Whoever has succumbed to torture can no longer feel at home in the world. The shame of destruction cannot be erased. Trust in the world, which already collapsed in part at the first blow, but in the end, under torture, fully, will not be regained. That one's fellow man was experienced as the antiman remains in the tortured person as accumulated horror. It blocks the view into a world in which the principle of hope rules. One who was martyred is a defenseless prisoner of fear. It is fear that henceforth reigns over him." --Jean AmeryAt the Mind's Limits is the story of one man's incredible struggle to understand the reality of horror. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival--mental, moral, and physical--through the enormity of the Holocaust. Above all, this masterful record of introspection tells of a young Viennese intellectual's fervent vision of human nature and the betrayal of that vision.

    But while it lasted, his closest lieutenants competed ferociously for power and position as his chosen successor. This peculiar leadership dynamic resulted in millions of deaths and some of the worst excesses of World War II. The Devil's Disciples is the first major book for a general readership to examine those lieutenants, not only as individuals but also as a group. It focuses on the three most important Nazi paladins—Göring, Goebbels, and Himmler—with their nearest rivals—Bormann, Speer, and Ribbentrop—in close attendance. Perceptive, illuminating, and grandly ambitious, The Devil's Disciples is above all a powerful chronological narrative, showing how the personalities of Hitler's inner circle developed and how their jealousies and constant intrigues affected the regime, the war, and Hitler himself.

    Heinrich Himmler was not only head of Hitler's SS police and Gestapo, but was also in charge of the death camps in the East. The account of Himmler's life and his impact on the rise and fall of the Nazi state make a gripping and horrifying story. But more than this, it is a profound moral and intellectual inquiry into the nature of evil in the human character.

    Leon Goldensohn–a psychiatrist for the U.S. Army–monitored the mental health of two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately–one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany–made them available to the public in this remarkable collection.Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop–the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful, The Nuremberg Interviews is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

    This gruesomely sentimental and unmistakably authentic title introduces an disturbing collection of photographs, diaries, letters home, and confidential reports created by the executioners and sympathetic observers of the Holocaust. "The Good Old Days" reveals startling new evidence of the inhumanity of recent twentieth century history and is published now as yet another irrefutable response to the revisionist historians who claim to doubt the historic truth of the Holocaust.

     Several hours before the Germans launched the deadliest campaign in military history in 1941, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, the minister of popular enlightenment and propaganda, were discussing the timing of their imminent invasion of the Soviet Union. According to Goebbels' journals, the two worked on Hitler's speech, and marveled at the ways in which they were planning to defeat communism and change the map of Europe. But that night, Hitler and Goebbels also discussed the recent advances in cancer research made by Nazi doctors in their pursuit of a "sanitary utopia." As science historian Robert N. Proctor exposes in his provocative new book The Nazi War on Cancer, the Nazi medical establishment was years ahead of the rest of the world in public health reform and research. Proctor is far from being a revisionist historian, and recognizes the extreme sensitivity of his subject matter. In fact, he is a cautious and elegant writer who frequently reminds readers of his earlier book, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, in which he documents the horrors of Nazi medical experiments. In this book, however, he finds that some Nazi scientific research was actually path-breaking and may have developed some of the era's most successful cancer prevention programs. As Proctor is careful to distinguish, The Nazi War on Cancer is not a book that champions Nazi medical practices; rather, it is "abookabout fascism, and a book about science," as the author seeks to understand how "fascism suppressed certain kinds of science&[and] how fascist ideals fostered research directions and lifestyle fashions that look strikingly like those we today might embrace." Until now, historians' focus on Nazi medical research has traditionally concentrated on political and racial ideology, because "little might appear to be gained by pointing to Nazi success in fighting food dyes, tobacco, or occupational dust." But the extraordinary work conducted during the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras was undeniable — German medicine and public health was the envy of the world at that time. In what is perhaps one of Proctor's most astounding revelations, evidence of the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was published as early as 1929 by Nazi physician Fritz Lickint, though cigarette incriminating studies didn't appear in England and the United States until 1950. Hitler was a virulent anti-smoker, and his regime launched one of the most aggressive anti-tobacco campaigns of the twentieth century. By 1938, smoking was banned in many offices, hospitals and rest homes, and "no-smoking" cars were established on all German trains by the following year. According to one propaganda poster, Hitler attributed his "performance at work" to his ability to resist both nicotine and alcohol. Diet was also important to the Nazis, and public health officials strongly promoted the consumption whole-grain breads, vegetables, and fruits, and other foods that were low in fat, high in fiber, and free of artificial colorings and preservatives. Germans were also encouraged to consult their physicians regularly for early cancer detection, and women were taught how to perform breast self-examinations as early as 1936. As one poster caption read: "Every automobile gets a regular checkup; that is obvious. Shouldn't the much more complicated machine of the human body also get regular checkups?" Why were Nazis so concerned with cancer prevention? Proctor notes that cancer "expressed larger cultural idioms" and became "a metaphor for all that was seen as wrong with society." Because of this, the German body "belonged" to the Führer, and good health was considered a citizen's duty. Because Nazi public health workers attributed improper diet as a major contributor to cancer, the effort to become the master race could only be achieved through healthy living. As one Hitler Youth manual asserted, "Nutrition is not a private matter!" It is far from Proctor's intention to express the simplistic and irresponsible sentiment that "good can come from evil" by bringing readers' attention to the progress made by Nazi scientists. Instead, this brave and sophisticated account brilliantly evokes the nuances of ethical paradoxes, as Proctor successfully points out our "need to better understand how the routine practice of science can so easily coexist with the routine exercise of cruelty." —Kera Bolonik

    Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margaret, Lina, Ilse and Gerda... These are the women behind the infamous men—complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself. Until now, they have been treated as minor characters, their significance ignored, as if they were unaware of their husbands' murderous acts, despite the evidence that was all around them: the stolen art on their walls, the slave labor in their homes, and the produce grown in concentration camps on their tables.James Wyllie's Nazi Wives explores these women in detail for the first time, skillfully interweaving their stories through years of struggle, power, decline and destruction into the post-war twilight of denial and delusion.

    The siege was not lifted for two and a half years, by which time some three quarters of a million Leningraders had died of starvation.Anna Reid's Leningrad is a gripping, authoritative narrative history of this dramatic moment in the twentieth century, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists on both sides. They reveal the Nazis' deliberate decision to starve Leningrad into surrender and Hitler's messianic miscalculation, the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet war leadership, the horrors experienced by soldiers on the front lines, and, above all, the terrible details of life in the blockaded city: the relentless search for food and water; the withering of emotions and family ties; looting, murder, and cannibalism- and at the same time, extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice.Stripping away decades of Soviet propaganda, and drawing on newly available diaries and government records, Leningrad also tackles a raft of unanswered questions: Was the size of the death toll as much the fault of Stalin as of Hitler? Why didn't the Germans capture the city? Why didn't it collapse into anarchy? What decided who lived and who died? Impressive in its originality and literary style, Leningrad gives voice to the dead and will rival Anthony Beevor's classic Stalingrad in its impact.

    They uncover evidence of collusion at worst and the turning of a blind eye at best, which enabled many leading Nazi's to escape apprehension and to hold onto their ill-gotten gains.Alford and Savas describe how the principal powermongers of the "Reich Sicherheits Hauptamt" - The Reich Main Security Office, established by Himmler and Kaltenbrunner to oversee all security departments of the German State - squirreled away vast fortunes. Towards the end of the war, blackmail, unrestrained looting, theft and the bartering of human lives became sources of great profit for these men. Never ideologically motivated, these RSHA managers, who included college professors, bank executives and engineers - all of whom are named in this book - preyed on the misfortunes of others. After stealing and destroying in the most brutal fashion, most of the RSHA leaders returned to a "normal" existence after the war, continuing their lives as if nothing untoward had ever happened How did they mislead U.S. Army criminal investigators and walk away free men? What part did money, blackmail, counter-spying and murder play in these events? Ken Alford and Ted Savas address these and many other questions in this detailed investigation and exposé.

    It begins in 2010 and moves backward and forward in time, from the present day to twentieth-century Poland, France, Germany, England, and America, ending in the courtroom of the Palace of Justice at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945. The book opens with the author being invited to give a lecture on genocide and crimes against humanity at Lviv University, welcomed as the first international law academic to give a lecture there on such subjects in fifty years. Sands accepted the invitation with the intent of learning about the extraordinary city with its rich cultural and intellectual life, home to his maternal grandfather, a Galician Jew who had been born there a century before and who’d moved to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War, married, had a child (the author’s mother), and who then had moved to Paris after the German annexation of Austria in 1938. It was a life that had been shrouded in secrecy, with many questions not to be asked and fewer answers offered if they were. As the author uncovered, clue by clue, the deliberately obscured story of his grandfather’s mysterious life and of his flight first to Vienna and then to Paris, and of his mother’s journey as a child surviving Nazi occupation, Sands searched further into the history of the city of Lemberg and realized that his own field of humanitarian law had been forged by two men—Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht—each of whom had studied law at Lviv University in the city of his grandfather’s birth, each of whom had come to be considered the finest international legal mind of the twentieth century, each considered to be the father of the modern human rights movement, and each, at parallel times, forging diametrically opposite, revolutionary concepts of humanitarian law that had changed the world. In this extraordinary and resonant book, Sands looks at who these two very private men were, and at how and why, coming from similar Jewish backgrounds and the same city, studying at the same university, each developed the theory he did, showing how each man dedicated this period of his life to having his legal concept—“genocide” and “crimes against humanity”—as a centerpiece for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. And the author writes of a third man, Hans Frank, Hitler’s personal lawyer, a Nazi from the earliest days who had destroyed so many lives, friend of Richard Strauss, collector of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. Frank oversaw the ghetto in Lemberg in Poland in August 1942, in which the entire large Jewish population of the area had been confined on penalty of death. Frank, who was instrumental in the construction of concentration camps nearby and, weeks after becoming governor general of Nazi-occupied Poland, ordered the transfer of 133,000 men, women, and children to the death camps. Sands brilliantly writes of how all three men came together, in October 1945 in Nuremberg—Rafael Lemkin; Hersch Lauterpacht; and in the dock at the Palace of Justice, with the twenty other defendants of the Nazi high command, prisoner number 7, Hans Frank, who had overseen the extermination of more than a million Jews of Galicia and Lemberg, among them, the families of the author’s grandfather as well as those of Lemkin and Lauterpacht. A book that changes the way we look at the world, at our understanding of history and how civilization has tried to cope with mass murder. Powerful; moving; tender; a revelation.