Birds of Prey

Hitler's Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers, and the Holocaust in Poland

,

• Publisher: ibidem
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9783838275673
• Edition: 0

'This is the smoking gun of all your research.'Professor Richard E. Holmes (18 February 2001). Birds of Prey is a microhistory of the Nazi occupation of BiaA owieA a Forest, Poland's national park. The narrative stretches from Gring's palatial lifestyle to the common soldier on the ground killing Jews, partisans, and civilians. Based entirely on previously unpublished sources, the book is the synthesis of six areas of research: Hitler's Luftwaffe, the hunt and environmental history, military geography, Colonialism and Nazi Lebensraum, the Holocaust, and the war in the East. By weaving together a narrative about Hermann Gring, his inner circle, and ordinary soldiers, the book reveals the Nazi ambition to draw together East Prussia, the Bialystok region, and Ukraine into a common eastern frontier of the Greater German state, revealing how the Luftwaffe, the German hunt, and the state forestry were institutional perpetrators of Lebensraum and genocide. Up until now the Luftwaffe had not been identified in specific acts of genocide or placed at large scale killings of Jews, civilians, and partisans. This gap in the historical record had been facilitated by the destruction of the Luftwaffe's records in 1945. Through a forensic and painstaking process of piecing together scraps of evidence over two decades, and utilizing Geographical Information System software, Philip W. Blood managed to decipher previously obscure reports and expose patterns of Nazi atrocities.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables
• List of Diagrams
• List of Maps
• List of Images
• Abbreviations and Glossary
• 1942
• Excursions in Microhistory
• An Aide-Mémoire: Reading Maps Like German soldiers
• 1. The Ogre of Rominten
• 2. The Conquest of Wilderness
• 3. Grossdeutschland
• 4. Bandenbekämpfung in the ‘Home Forces Area’
• 5. The Białowieźa Partisans
• 6. Population Engineering
• 7. Judenjagd
• 8. German Soldiers and Bandenbekämpfung
• 9. 1943
• 10. Göring’s Hunter Killers
• 11. Bandenjagd
• 12. 1944: Retreat
• Conclusion: Memories of a Never Happened History
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: German Ranks
• Appendix 2: Luftwaffe Soldiers
• Bibliography
• About the Author