The Origins of the Final Solution; The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942

Browning, Christopher R., with Matthaus, Jurgens (contributor)

ISBN 10: 0803213271 / ISBN 13: 9780803213272

Published by University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, Lincoln, Nebraska and Jerusalem, 2004

About this Item

xii, [2], 615, [9] pages. Includes List of Illustrations; Preface; Background; Poland, Laboratory of Racial Policy; The Search for a Final Solution through expulsion; The Polish Ghettos; Germany and Europe; Preparing for the War of Destruction"; Operation Barbarossa and the Onset of the Holocaust; From War of Destruction to the Final Solution; The Final Solution from Conception to Implementation, October 1941--March 1942; and Conclusion. Also contains Notes, Bibliography, and Index, as well as charts on General Government, 1939--1942, and Nazi Expulsions, September 1939--April 1941, and maps of Poland 1940; Europe, December 1941; and Occupied Soviet Territory, December 1941. Christopher Robert Browning (born May 22, 1944) is Frank Porter Graham Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). A specialist on the Holocaust, Browning is known for his work on the Final Solution, the behavior of those implementing Nazi policies, and the use of survivor testimony. He is the author of nine books, including Ordinary Men (1992) and The Origins of the Final Solution (2004). Browning taught at Pacific Lutheran University from 1974 to 1999, eventually becoming a Distinguished Professor. In 1999 he moved to UNC to accept the appointment as Frank Porter Graham Professor of History, and in 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. After retiring from UNC in 2014, he became a visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Browning has acted as an expert witness at several Holocaust-related trials. Focusing on the months between the German conquest of Poland in September 1939--which brought nearly two million additional Jews under Nazi control--and the beginning of the deportation of Jews to the death camps in the spring of 1942, the author describes how Poland became a laboratory for experiments in racial policies, from expulsion and decimation to ghettoization and exploitation under local occupation authorities. He reveals how the subsequent attack on the Soviet Union opened the door for an immense radicalization of Nazi Jewish policy--and marked the beginning of the Final Solution. Meticulously documenting the process that led to this fatal development, the author shows that Adolf Hitler was the key decision-maker throughout, approving major escalations in Nazi persecution of the Jews at victory-induced moments of euphoria. Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, this groundbreaking work provides an essential chapter in the history of the Holocaust. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: An internationally renowned historian of the Holocaust, Browning explains the evolution of Nazi anti-Jewish policies from discrimination and expulsions to outright systematic murder. Once the Nazis had seized power in 1933, the exclusion of Jews from German and European society was inevitable, but there initially existed no premeditated plan for genocide. Based on a superb mastery of the archival sources and the secondary literature, Browning leads his readers through the step-by-step radicalization of Nazi policies in the critical months after the outbreak of WWII. Occupied Poland was the "laboratory of racial policy," where Nazi functionaries experimented with expulsions and shootings of Jews while regular army officers essentially caved in to the brutalities of the SS. But all the plans for expulsion ran aground, Browning shows, due to the exigencies of war. In the wake of the invasion of the Soviet Union, mass killings became the policy of choice to solve the Nazis' self-imposed "Jewish problem." Browning argues that at every stage, the "euphoria of victory" in the war led to a radicalization of policies against Jews. Even though Hitler rarely issued explicit orders, Browning shows he was intimately involved each step of the way. This book is sure to become the standard work on the emergence of the Holocaust.

Seller Inventory # 82170

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Origins of the Final Solution; The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, Lincoln, Nebraska and Jerusalem
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803213271
• ISBN 13: 9780803213272
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: Presumed First Edition, First printing.
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Holocaust
  • Jews
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Genocide

About this title

Synopsis

Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

In 1939, the Nazi regime's plans for redrawing the demographic map of Eastern Europe entailed the expulsion of millions of Jews. By the fall of 1941, these plans had shifted from expulsion to systematic and total mass murder of all Jews within the Nazi grasp. The Origins of the Final Solution is the most detailed and comprehensive analysis ever written of what took place during this crucial period―of how, precisely, the Nazis' racial policies evolved from persecution and "ethnic cleansing" to the Final Solution of the Holocaust.

Focusing on the months between the German conquest of Poland in September 1939–which brought nearly two million additional Jews under Nazi control―and the beginning of the deportation of Jews to the death camps in the spring of 1942, Christopher R. Browning describes how Poland became a laboratory for experiments in racial policies, from expulsion and decimation to ghettoization and exploitation under local occupation authorities. He reveals how the subsequent attack on the Soviet Union opened the door for an immense radicalization of Nazi Jewish policy―and marked the beginning of the Final Solution. Meticulously documenting the process that led to this fatal development, Browning shows that Adolf Hitler was the key decision-maker throughout, approving major escalations in Nazi persecution of the Jews at victory-induced moments of euphoria. Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, this groundbreaking work provides an essential chapter in the history of the Holocaust.

About the Author

Christopher R. Browning is Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He is the author of numerous books on Nazism and the Holocaust, including Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers and Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.