Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing

Alex J. Kay

Published by Yale University Press 2021

Empire of Destruction

A History of Nazi Mass Killing

Alex J. Kay

https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300262537

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first comparative, comprehensive history of Nazi mass killing – showing how genocidal policies were crucial to the regime’s strategy to win the war

Nazi Germany killed approximately 13 million civilians and other non-combatants in deliberate policies of mass murder, mostly during the war years. Almost half the victims were Jewish, systematically destroyed in the Holocaust, the core of the Nazis’ pan-European racial purification programme.

Alex Kay argues that the genocide of European Jewry can be examined in the wider context of Nazi mass killing. For the first time, Empire of Destruction considers Europe’s Jews alongside all the other major victim groups: captive Red Army soldiers, the Soviet urban population, unarmed civilian victims of preventive terror and reprisals, the mentally and physically disabled, the European Roma and the Polish intelligentsia. Kay shows how each of these groups was regarded by the Nazi regime as a potential threat to Germany’s ability to successfully wage a war for hegemony in Europe.

Combining the full quantitative scale of the killings with the individual horror, this is a vital and groundbreaking work.

Author / Editor information

Kay Alex J. :

Alex J. Kay is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Potsdam and lifetime Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has published five acclaimed books on Nazi Germany,
including The Making of an SS Killer.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xiv
NOTE ON PLACE NAMES AND CONVENTIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xvi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xviii
Map of Europe in 1941 Publicly Available Download PDF	xx
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I SUMMER 1939–SUMMER 1941
CHAPTER 1 KILLING THE SICK IN THE GERMAN REICH AND POLAND Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
CHAPTER 2 DECAPITATION OF POLISH SOCIETY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Part II SUMMER 1941–SPRING 1942
CHAPTER 3 HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
CHAPTER 4 MURDER OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS AND ROMA IN THE SOVIET UNION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
CHAPTER 5 STARVATION POLICY AGAINST THE SOVIET URBAN POPULATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
CHAPTER 6 EXTERMINATION OF CAPTIVE RED ARMY SOLDIERS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
CHAPTER 7 PREVENTIVE TERROR AND REPRISALS AGAINST CIVILIANS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Part III SPRING 1942–SPRING 1945
CHAPTER 8 HOLOCAUST BY GAS: OPERATION REINHARDT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
CHAPTER 9 THE GATES OF HELL: AUSCHWITZ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
CHAPTER 10 GENOCIDE OF THE EUROPEAN ROMA Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
CHAPTER 11 DECENTRALISED ‘EUTHANASIA’ IN THE GERMAN REICH Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
CHAPTER 12 SUPPRESSION OF THE WARSAW UPRISING Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	282
APPENDIX I VICTIMS OF NAZI MASS-KILLING CAMPAIGNS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
APPENDIX II COMPARATIVE RANKS FOR 1942 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
ENDNOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	338
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	358

Language: English
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages
- Main content: 400

eBook

Published: December 21, 2021
ISBN: 9780300262537