Description
Book Synopsis For decades, historians have debated how and to what extent the Holocaust penetrated the German national consciousness between 1933 and 1945. How much did “ordinary” Germans know about the subjugation and mass murder of the Jews, when did they know it, and how did they respond collectively and as individuals? This compact volume brings together six historical investigations into the subject from leading scholars employing newly accessible and previously underexploited evidence. Ranging from the roots of popular anti-Semitism to the complex motivations of Germans who hid Jews, these studies illuminate some of the most difficult questions in Holocaust historiography, supplemented with an array of fascinating primary source materials.
Trade Review “This volume brings to light fresh material from hitherto neglected primary sources, and also makes available in English some findings only previously available to German readers. Especially valuable is the careful evaluation and comparison of reports about life in Nazi Germany from Nazi perpetrators, Jewish victims, and foreign bystanders.” · Geoffrey J. Giles, University of Florida
Table of Contents Preface
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction: The German People and the Holocaust
Alan E. Steinweis and Susanna Schrafstetter
Chapter 1. Antisemitism in Germany, 1890-1933: How Popular Was It?
Richard S. Levy
Chapter 2. German Responses to the Persecution of the Jews as Reflected in Three Collections of Secret Reports
Frank Bajohr
Chapter 3. Indifference? Participation and Protest as Individual Responses to the Persecution of the Jews as Revealed in Berlin Police Logs and Trial Records, 1933-45
Wolf Gruner
Chapter 4. Babi Yar, but not Auschwitz: What Did Germans Know about the Final Solution?
Peter Fritzsche
Chapter 5. Submergence into Illegality: Hidden Jews in Munich, 1941-1945
Susanna Schrafstetter
Chapter 6. Where Did All “Our” Jews Go? Germans and Jews in Post-Nazi Germany
Atina Grossmann
Appendixes
- Proclamation of the Alliance against the Arrogance of Jewry, 1912
- Reports from American Diplomat George S. Messersmith to the State Department (Excerpts), 1933
- Police Precinct Report, Berlin, 1938
- Social Democratic Party (SoPaDe) Report on the November 1938 Pogrom (Excerpts), 1938
- Report from the Mayor of Amt Borgentreich to the Gestapo in Bielefeld (Excerpt), 1938
- SD Reports on German Popular Opinion during World War II (Excerpts), 1943-44
- Berlin Memories of Marcella Herrmann (Excerpt), Early 1940s
- Statement from Dr. Sophie Mayer (Excerpts), 1946
- Moses Moskowitz, “The Germans and the Jews: Postwar Report” (Excerpts), 1946
Contributors
Index
