Synopses & Reviews
In
An Uncompromising Generation, Michael Wildt follows the journey of a strikingly homogenous group of young academics—who came from the educated, bourgeois stratum of society—as they started to identify with the Nazi concept of
Volksgemeinschaft, which labeled Jews as enemies of the people and justified their murder.
Wildt’s study traces the intellectual evolution of key members of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) from their days as students until the end of World War II. Established in 1939, this office fused together the Gestapo, the Criminal Police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) of the SS. Far from being small cogs in a big bureaucratic machine, Wildt finds that the people who made up the RSHA constructed the concepts and operated the apparatus that carried out the Holocaust.
At the center of both theory and practice of persecution and genocide in Nazi-occupied Europe, these young men of the RSHA—none of whom envisioned the systematic annihilation of the European Jews—became radicalized. How this occurred is the central question of Wildt’s book. Wildt also discusses the postwar careers of the members of the RSHA. Strikingly, he shows how the leaders of the RSHA evaded the consequences of their actions under the Nazi regime and went on to have important careers in the rebuilt West Germany.
An alternate selection of the History Book Club and Military Book Club
Review
“Michael Wildt’s examination of the leadership corps of Himmler’s ‘Reich Security Main Office’ . . . is a major work in every sense.”—Richard Bessel, The Times Literary Supplement
Review
“Wildt’s exceptionally well-written book is easily accessible.”—Alexander Arndt, Jewish Political Studies Review
Review
“Michael Wildt has undoubtedly written an authoritative study of the RSHA, that will, for years to come, be a great aid for historical research concerning National Socialist Germany.”—Saul Friedländer, author of When Memory Comes
Review
“An indispensable and provocative study of key members of the RSHA that focuses on their intellectual evolution from university students to practitioners of mass murder.”—Choice
Review
"A highly original, intelligent, and reflective piece of historical scholarship. One of the most important works to have appeared on the subject of postwar German historiography in the past decade."and#151;Anthony Kauders, author of
Democratization and the JewsReview
"An essential work for students of Holocaust historiography and West German history and a fascinating read for everyone interested in the historian's craft. This American edition adds important new dimensions to the debate."and#151;Adi Gordon, Amherst College
Review
andldquo;The Enemy of the New Man offers many rare insights into Mussoliniandrsquo;s totalitarian andlsquo;experimentandrsquo; in actively shaping the laws and cultural codes that regulated gender and sexuality during the Fascist period in Italy. Benadusi goes well below the surface rhetoric about the virility of the Fascist andlsquo;New Man,andrsquo; offering an important new understanding of actual practices of sexual repression during the Fascist period and the specific legal and punitive measures elaborated for the regimentation of the sexual lives of Italians. It is a book that takes many risks and offers significant rewards.andrdquo;andmdash;Patrick Rumble, author of Allegories of Contamination
Review
andldquo;A brilliant, luminously eloquent study of the unique nature of Italian fascism's efforts to manage masculinity, homo- and heterosexual alike, but also much more than that. Breathtaking in the scope of its source materials and the acuity of its analyses, The Enemy of the New Man advances the history of Catholicism and the comparative history of fascism, and above all offers numerous insights into how post-liberal and totalitarian systems work through sexual politics.andrdquo;andmdash;Dagmar Herzog, author of Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History
Review
andldquo;The study is incredibly rich in information thanks to Benadusiandrsquo;s sustained archival research. . . . Its main strengths are the breadth of its scopeandmdash;both in range of issues tackled and in chronological reachandmdash;and the detail provided.andrdquo;andmdash;
Historian JournalReview
andldquo;This translation of Lorenzo Benadusiandrsquo;s weighty study . . . is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on dissident sexualities in Italy.andrdquo;andmdash;
The HistorianSynopsis
'Between Resistance and Martyrdom' is a comprehensive historical study of the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Holocaust era."
Synopsis
This landmark book, Nicholas Berg addresses the work of German and German-Jewish historians in the first three decades of post-World War II Germany. He examines how they perceivedand#151;and failed to perceiveand#151;the Holocaust and how they interpreted and misinterpreted that historical fact using an arsenal of terms and concepts, arguments, and explanations.
Synopsis
This landmark book was first published in Germany, provoking both acclaim and controversy. In this "history of historiography," Nicolas Berg addresses the work of German and German-Jewish historians in the first three decades of postand#150;World War II Germany. He examines how they perceivedand#151;and failed to perceiveand#151;the Holocaust and how they interpreted and misinterpreted that historical fact using an arsenal of terms and concepts, arguments and explanations.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; This English-language translation is also a shortened and reorganized edition, which includes a new introduction by Berg reviewing and commenting on the response to the German editions. Notably, in this American edition, discussion of historian Joseph Wulf and his colleague and fellow Holocaust survivor Land#233;on Poliakov has been united in one chapter. And special care has been taken to make clear to English speakers the questions raised about German historiographical writing. Translator Joel Golb comments, "From 1945 to the present, the way historians have approached the Holocaust has posed deep-reaching problems regarding choice of language. . . . This book is consequently as much about language as it is about facts."
Synopsis
In this first in-depth historical study of homosexuality in Fascist Italy, Lorenzo Benadusi brings to light immensely important archival documents regarding the sexual politics of the Italian Fascist regime; he adds new insights to the study of the complex relationships of masculinity, sexuality, and Fascism; he explores the connections between new Fascist values and preexisting Italian traditional and Roman Catholic views on morality; he documents both the Fascist regimeandrsquo;s denial of the existence of homosexuality in Italy and its clandestine strategies and motivations for repressing and imprisoning homosexuals; he uncovers the ways that accusations of homosexuality (whether true or false) were used against political and personal enemies; and above all, he shows how homosexuality was deemed the enemy of the Fascist andldquo;New Man,andrdquo; an ideal of a virile warrior and dominating husband vigorously devoted to the andldquo;politicalandrdquo; function of producing children for the Fascist state.
and#160;and#160;and#160; Benadusi investigates the regulation and regimentation of gender in Fascist Italy, and the extent to which, in uneasy concert with the Catholic Church, the regime engaged in the cultural and legal engineering of masculinity and femininity. He cites a wealth of unpublished documents, official speeches, letters, coerced confessions, private letters and diaries, legal documents, and government memos to reveal and analyze how the orders issued by the regime attempted to protect the andldquo;integrity of the Italian race.andrdquo; For the first time, documents from the Vatican archives illuminate how the Catholic Church dealt with issues related to homosexuality during the Fascist period in Italy.
About the Author
“Michael Wildt’s examination of the leadership corps of Himmler’s ‘Reich Security Main Office’ . . . is a major work in every sense.”—Richard Bessel,
The Times Literary Supplement“Wildt’s exceptionally well-written book is easily accessible.”—Alexander Arndt,
Jewish Political Studies Review“Michael Wildt has undoubtedly written an authoritative study of the RSHA, that will, for years to come, be a great aid for historical research concerning National Socialist Germany.”—Saul Friedländer, author of
When Memory Comes“An indispensable and provocative study of key members of the RSHA that focuses on their intellectual evolution from university students to practitioners of mass murder.”—Choice
Table of Contents
Editorial Note by Joel Golband#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
Introduction to the American Editionand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
1 Tragedy, Fate, and Breach: Friedrich Meinecke's The German Catastrophe (1946) and the Paradoxes of "National-Historical" Interpretationand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
2 "A Large Dark Stain on the German Shield of Honor": Gerhard Ritter, Hans Rothfels, and the Denationalization of National Socialismand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
3 Hermann Heimpel, Reinhard Wittram, and Fritz Ernst: A "Demonstration of Protestant Penitence" in 1950s Germanyand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
4 "How Difficult It Is Not to Write Powerfully about Auschwitz!": The Early Years of Munich's Institute for Contemporary Historyand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
5 "Prehistorical Excavations" and "Absolute Objectivity": On the Travail of the Polish-Jewish Historian of the Holocaust Joseph Wulfand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
Notesand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Index