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This analytical text serves as a remarkable introduction to Holocaust studies. Bartov offers revisionist interpretations of the role played by the Wehrmacht and the German tactics of war, such as the blitzkrieg, as a means by which to conceal Nazi German extermination practices. Further, this book examines the introspection of German citizens at the time of World War II, post-war changes in America, and the atmosphere of fear that permeated Europe during the war.

In order to fully understand the events of the Holocaust, one must comprehend the circumstances surrounding the Second World War and the pervasive theories of race propagated by the Nazi Hitler's regime. Bartov does an excellent job of offering a survey of the war and explains in detail, from different perspectives, the origins of the Nazi Reich's policies concerning the Holocaust.

Aside from a basic knowledge of World War II, understanding the basics tenets of fascism is essential to understanding the genocide of the Holocaust. Griffin compiles a provocative collection of primary sources in the form of propaganda articles, essays, and the text of speeches given by prominent leaders of fascism. The reader is not limited to Nazism Hitler's as it is broken down by time period and country. The books moves from the fascist movement in Italy that began in the 1920s to the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. Other fascist movements are included, however; for the purpose of Holocaust studies, the one hundred-fifty pages devoted to Germany’s movement is essential to understanding how the Holocaust unfolded.

The Chicago Tribune called ''Ordinary Men'' “a staggering and important book.” That is appropriate. Browning, as always, has done meticulous research and produced an almost transdisciplinary book describing aspects of the Holocaust. This factual historical text reads like a novel and will cause introspection among readers. As the title suggests, ordinary German citizens are tasked with murdering Jews in Poland. These men, who prior to the war worked as shoe makers, bankers, and a plethora of traditional jobs, were called into action and ordered by Nazi leaders Hitler and his leadership to participate in the Final Solution. Taken from their workaday lives, they were transformed into murderers; some willing, most reluctantreluctantly. Browning’s work prompts the reader to ask himself, “What would I have done?”

This work is so important in that it reminds students, and established historians alike, that not all Germans were willing Nazis who advocated supported genocide. The German war machine pulled this group, and many others, into the Holocaust. These men were not conscripted into military service to fight a war on behalf of their country, they were activated as a police battalion tasked with murdering other ordinary citizens, who just happened to be Jewish. Browning, therefore, not only details their actions, he also studies this group through a psychological lens as individual men asked to do what was previously deemed unthinkable. Critical readers will find this book indispensable and it is recommended to all students of the Holocaust and can be used in the discourse of any genocidal study.

'''4)''' Christopher R. Browning, ''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BS34NCY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00BS34NCY&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=4c696ed437a21722f194d93301e90d12 The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi N azi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942]'' (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Christopher Browning produced yet another essential analysis of the Holocaust. Specific in scope, this book illustrates what took place during the crucial time between the German invasion of Poland and the onset of mass transportation of Jews to death camps. After Germany conquered Poland, nearly two million additional Jews fell under Nazi the Reich's control. This meticulous work, in both research and analysis, traces the Nazi Hitler's plan of extermination from ethnic cleansing to mass murder. Further, it highlights the importance of Poland as an ersatz training ground for Nazi genocide. This book is perhaps best suited to the advanced scholar who has limited her area of study. The notes and bibliography will prompt the student to further study the structure of the Holocaust.

Although three decades old, ''The Pink Triangle'' is an important work in that it deals with a non-Jewish group that was targeted for genocide. Plant adequately covers the homosexual community in Berlin prior to the Nazi rise to power. He then takes the reader chronologically through the effects of the eugenics programs on homosexuals, the sterilization of gay men, and eventual confinement in work and death camps. Interestingly, this book illustrates Hitler’s seemingly indifferent attitude towards homosexuality. Rather, Himmler was primarily responsible for enforcing Germany’s anti-homosexual laws. At the crux of Plant’s argument is that specifically male homosexuality was a deterrent to propagating a pure Aryan race. Two million German men were lost during the Great War and the Second World War was taking even more. Additionally, it was estimated that two million more of German men were homosexual, thereby causing a tremendous delay in the propagation of a pure race. This pronatalism thesis coupled with a detailed look at what the life of a homosexual was like under Nazi Hitler's rule, makes this an important study of the Holocaust.