Description
In ""An Uncompromising Generation"", Michael Wildt follows the journey of a strikingly homogenous group of young academics - who came from the educated, bourgeois stratum of society - as they started to identify with the Nazi concept of Volksgemeinschaft, which labeled Jews as enemies of the people and justified their murder. Wildt's study traces the intellectual evolution of key members of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) from their days as students until the end of World War II. Established in 1939, this office fused together the Gestapo, the Criminal Police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) of the SS. Far from being small cogs in a big bureaucratic machine, Wildt finds that the people who made up the RSHA constructed the concepts and operated the apparatus that carried out the Holocaust. At the center of both theory and practice of persecution and genocide in Nazi-occupied Europe, these young men of the RSHA - none of whom envisioned the systematic annihilation of the European Jews - became radicalized. How this occurred is the central question of Wildt's book. Wildt also discusses the postwar careers of the members of the RSHA. Strikingly, he shows how the leaders of the RSHA evaded the consequences of their actions under the Nazi regime and went on to have important careers in the rebuilt West Germany.
About the Author
Michael Wildt is a research fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and associate professor of modern history at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Tom Lampert is a freelance translator and writer who lives in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
Reviews
"Michael Wildt's examination of the leadership corps of Himmler's 'Reich Security Main Office'... is a major work in every sense." - Richard Bessel, The Times Literary Supplement "Wildt's exceptionally well-written book is easily accessible." - Alexander Arndt, Jewish Political Studies Review "Michael Wildt has undoubtedly written an authoritative study of the RSHA, that will, for years to come, be a great aid for historical research concerning National Socialist Germany." - Saul Friedlander, author of When Memory Comes"
Book Information
ISBN 9780299234645
Author Michael Wildt
Format Paperback
Page Count 592
Imprint University of Wisconsin Press
Publisher University of Wisconsin Press
Weight(grams) 913g
About the Author
Michael Wildt is a research fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and associate professor of modern history at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Tom Lampert is a freelance translator and writer who lives in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
Reviews
"Michael Wildt's examination of the leadership corps of Himmler's 'Reich Security Main Office'... is a major work in every sense." - Richard Bessel, The Times Literary Supplement "Wildt's exceptionally well-written book is easily accessible." - Alexander Arndt, Jewish Political Studies Review "Michael Wildt has undoubtedly written an authoritative study of the RSHA, that will, for years to come, be a great aid for historical research concerning National Socialist Germany." - Saul Friedlander, author of When Memory Comes"
Book Information
ISBN 9780299234645
Author Michael Wildt
Format Paperback
Page Count 592
Imprint University of Wisconsin Press
Publisher University of Wisconsin Press
Weight(grams) 913g
