The Unwritten Order: Hitler's Role in the Final Solution (History of Nazism) - Softcover

Longerich, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752425641 ISBN 13: 9780752425641

Publisher: The History Press, 2004

Synopsis

The definitive study of Hitler's role in the greatest act of genocide of the twentieth century.

The Holocaust differs from other genocides in recent history for one main reason: there is no other example in which a minority was annihilated systematically and as completely as possible on the orders of a head of state and through the apparatus of government.

To reconstruct Hitler's central role in the Final Solution represents a particular challenge. Hitler treated the murder of the Jews as a matter of the utmost secrecy and was careful wherever possible not to leave behind any written orders. Wherever his instructions on this matter are recorded he has used codified language. He kept away from the implementation of the orders and feigned ignorance, even to his closest friends and colleagues. Under these conditions, the surviving source material can only be described as fragmentary.

The aim of the book is to offer documentary proof of Hitler's central role in the murder of the European Jews. In order to achieve this aim, various documents and fragments of documents have been pieced together and the codified language of the dictator deciphered.

About this title

Review

‘Peter Longerich is one of the leading German authorities on the Holocaust and the author of an outstanding study of Nazi extermination policies.’ -- Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis.

‘a compelling account of how Hitler came to take the decision to kill the Jews.’ -- Richard Evans, author of In Defense of History

‘what part did Hitler play in the Holocaust?... the finest account to date of the many twists and turns of Adolf Hitler’s anti-semitic obsession.’ -- Professor Richard Overy, author of Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945

About the Author

Peter Longerich is former Director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and 20th-century history. He was an expert witness in the celebrated trial between David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt/Penguin Books, his role to demonstrate that the murder of millions of Jews was conducted on Hitler s orders. He is the author of "Goebbels" and "Heinrich Himmler.""

Edition details

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0752425641
• ISBN 13: 9780752425641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160