Description
Book SynopsisModel Nazi tells the story of Arthur Greiser, the man who initiated the Final Solution in Nazi-occupied Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, Greiser was the territorial leader of the Warthegau, an area of western Poland annexed to Nazi Germany. In an effort to make the Warthegau ''German,'' Greiser introduced numerous cruel policies. He spearheaded an influx of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans. He segregated Germans from Poles, and introduced wide-ranging discriminatory measures against the Polish population. He refashioned the urban and natural landscape to make it ''German.'' And even more chillingly, the first and longest standing ghetto, the largest forced labour program, and the first mass gassings of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were all initiated under Greiser''s jurisdiction. Who was the man behind these dreadful policies? Catherine Epstein gives us a compelling biographical portrait of Greiser the man: his birth in the German-Polish borderlands, his rise to Nazi prominence in
Trade Review[an] authoritatively sourced and minutely examined study * John P. Fox, Slavonic and East European Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. 'Child of the East': Posen Province, World War I, Danzig ; 2. 'Little Maria': Striving for Strength and Power in Danzig ; 3. 'The Nicest Time of My Life': Senate President ; 4. The 'Model Gau': The Warthegau ; 5. 'A Blonde Province': Resettlement, Deportation, Murder ; 6. 'The German is the Master': Segregation in the Warthegau ; 7. 'The Most Modern Streets': Exploiting Poles and Jews to Make the Gau German ; 8. 'Feudal Duke': Rule and Loss ; 9. 'Two Souls in My Breast': Trial and Execution ; Afterword ; Notes ; Selected Bibliography ; Index
