Adolf Eichmann was at the center of the Nazi genocide against the Jews, yet he remained an obscure figure until his capture by the Israeli Secret Service in Argentina in 1960 and his trial in Jerusalem. From 1941 to 1945 Eichmann organized the mass deportation and extinction of Jews in Europe. This book, the first account of Eichmann's life to appear in over forty years, reveals a surprising portrait of the man once seen as epitomizing the "banality of evil." Drawing on recently unearthed documents, historian Cesarani explores Eichmann's early career when he learned how to become an administrator of genocide, and shows how Eichmann developed into the Reich's "expert" on Jewish matters, becoming ever more hateful and brutal. This sobering account deepens our understanding and challenges our preconceptions of Adolf Eichmann, and offers fresh insights into both the operation of the "Final Solution" and its most notorious perpetrator.--From publisher information.

"The life and mysterious death of Otto Wachter, former Governor of Nazi-occupied Poland, who died in the Vatican after World War II"--

Who's Who in Nazi Germany looks at the individuals who influenced every aspect of life in Nazi Germany. It covers a representative cross-section of German society from 1933-1945, and includes: * Nazi Party leaders; SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo personalities; civil service and diplomatic personnel * industrialists, churchmen, intellectuals, artists, entertainers and sports personalities * Resistance leaders, political dissidents, critics and victims of the regime * extensive biographical information on each figure extending into the post-war period * analysis of their role and significance in Nazi Germany * an accessible, easy to use A-Z layout * a glossary and comprehensive bibliography.

This amazing story of World War 2 chronicles the carrer of Dr Felix Kersten, physicain to the high-demon of the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler. Kersten, an alternative medicine specialist, could alleviate Himmler's severe stomach pains with his hands, using massage and manipulation. In return, Kersten bargained with Himmler to order the release of innocent prisoners condemned to die. By war's end, thanks to Kersten, thousands of jews and other prisoners had eluded the fate of the concentration camp. This is a memorable account of a little-known miracle of World War 2.

A study of Adolf Eichmann - the man, his crimes, and his legacy, focusing on the turning points in his life and seeking to understand the social and political dynamics that account for the direction his life took. He was neither a psychopath nor a fanatical antisemite from his youth. His ideological racist antisemitism dates to ca. 1936-38 and his socialization in the SD. While he was responsible for atrocities connected with the deportation of Jews, this activity was not genocidal, nor was Nazi policy, until 1941-42. A turning point in his racism occurred when he was given responsibility for deporting Poles, as well as Jews, from German-occupied areas. Later, when he came to view the Jews as Germany's archenemy, he was ready to assist in their destruction. Asserts that it is not the man, but ideas, society, political systems, and circumstances that make genocidal acts acceptable. Not only totalitarian states, bureaucracies, and modern societies, but also democracies and unmodernized societies in the 20th and 21st centuries have engaged in ethnic cleansing spurred by racism and fanaticism. Ch. 8 (pp. 237-323), "Interrogation, Trial and Execution, 1960-62", discusses the Eichmann trial in Israel.

An autobiography by Zuroff (born in 1948 in New York), focusing on his relentless search for Holocaust perpetrators, both Nazis and their local collaborators, mainly in Eastern Europe, who after World War II found refuge in the USA and other Western countries. In 1978 Zuroff began to work at the newly established Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and from 1979 he worked with the U.S. Office of Special Investigations, created to take legal action against Nazi war criminals and collaborators living in the USA. In the late 1980s he launched a campaign on behalf of the Wiesenthal Center to prosecute Nazi criminals and collaborators who had entered Australia, Canada, Britain, and other Western countries posing as refugees. In the course of his activities, Zuroff was confronted with the reluctance of authorities in Western countries to punish citizens who had been Holocaust perpetrators; many of those who Zuroff was able to trace died unpunished. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, he launched a similar campaign in formerly communist countries; his attempts to convince Latvian and Estonian governments to de-heroize mass murderers such as Herberts Cukurs and Evald Mikson, and to bring to trial numerous others, were in vain. In 1998-99, however, he was successful in achieving the extradition to Croatia from Argentina and then the trial and punishment of Dinko Šakić. Buoyed by the success, Zuroff began Operation Last Chance, aiming to trace and bring to trial former mass murderers from the Baltics, Ukraine, Croatia, Austria, Romania, etc. Relates some achievements of this operation. Zuroff's activities have occasionally evoked antisemitic and neo-Nazi backlash in the Baltics, Croatia, and elsewhere.

Coming generations will ask themselves how it was possible that millions of people, victims of an artificially induced enthusiasm, could be moved to do the very things which led to their own ruin. The answer could be given in hundreds of thousands of words, but, if it were expressed in one word alone, that word would be: Goebbels. Curt Riess, a Jewish Berliner who fled Germany upon Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, considered Goebbels to be 'the most outstanding man of the Nazi regime, not even barring Hitler himself.' Without Goebbels' genius for organization and propaganda, Nazism could never have amassed the support it needed to gain and keep power in Germany. From provincial obscurity, Goebbels scurried through the Nazi ranks to become one of the most dominant and trusted members of Hitler's inner circle. His career was marked by formidable powers of administration, his ruthless hatred of the Jews, his resourcefulness in promoting Nazi ideals, and his inflexible devotion to the Führer, asserted in his final morbid gesture of propaganda: the sacrifice of his wife, six children, and himself in Hitler's bunker in 1945. Riess' biography was first published in 1949 and benefitted greatly from the discovery of Goebbels' diaries in 1946. It explores the many fascinating and pertinent aspects of Goebbels' character: the insecurities brought on by his diminutive stature; his rejection by his family; his consuming jealousy of his rivals; and his obsession with sex. It remains a compelling and authoritative biography of the man whose manipulative genius steered the German nation to ruin.

Text: English (translation) Original Language: German