The Germans and the Holocaust

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.

Susanna Schrafstetter is Associate Professor of History at the University of Vermont. She is the author of two books about the history of nuclear non-proliferation, and has recently published Flucht und Versteck, a book about fugitive Jews in Munich and Bavaria during World War Two.

Alan E. Steinweis is the Miller Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies and director of the Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont. His books include Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany and Kristallnacht 1938.

“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