War and Genocide

A Concise History of the Holocaust

Doris L. Bergen

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 4
• eBook ISBN:
  9781538178072
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, fourth edition discusses not only the persecution of Jews, but also other groups targeted by the Nazis: people with disabilities, Roma, queer people, Poles in leadership positions, Soviet POWs, and others deemed unwanted. In clear and eloquent prose, Bergen explores the two interconnected goals that drove the Nazi German program of conquest and genocide—purification of the so-called Aryan race and expansion of its living space—and invites readers to reflect on how the Holocaust connects to histories of violence around the world. Replete with firsthand accounts from victims, survivors, and eyewitnesses, this book is immediate, human, and eminently readable.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• List of Illustrations and Photo Credits
• List of Maps
• Introduction: Holocaust, War, and Genocide: Themes and Problems
• 1 Dry Timber: Preconditions
• 2 Leadership and Will: Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and Nazi Ideology
• 3 From Revolution to Routine: Nazi Germany, 1933–1938
• 4 Open Aggression: In Search of War, 1938–1939
• 5 Brutal Innovations: War against Poland and Ghettoization of Jews, 1939–1940
• 6 Escalation and Expansion: The Program to Kill People with Disabilities and the War in the West, 1939–1941
• 7 The War of Annihilation, 1941–1943
• 8 Flashover: The Peak Years of Killing Jews, 1942–1943
• 9 Death Throes and Killing Frenzies, 1944–1945
• Conclusion: Legacies of Atrocity
• References and Sources
• About the Author