Prologue to Annihilation: Ordinary American and British Jews Challenge the Third Reich

American and British appeasement of Nazism during the early years of the Third Reich went far beyond territorial concessions. InPrologue to Annihilation: Ordinary American and British Jews Challenge the Third Reich, Stephen Norwood examines the numerous of ways that the two nations' official position of tacit acceptance of Jewish persecution enabled the policies that ultimately led to the Final Solution and how Nazi annihilationist intentions were clearly discernible even during the earliest years of Hitler's rule.

Further, Norwood looks at the nature and impact of American and British Jewish resistance to Nazi persecution and the efforts of Jews at the grassroots level to press Jewish organizations to respond more forcefully to the Nazi menace. He examines the worldwide protest and boycott movements against Germany and German goods as well as spontaneous uprisings by working-class Jews in London's East End.

Prologue to Annihilation details how the events of 1930-1936tested American and British societies' willingness to accept Nazism and its anti-Jewish philosophy and illuminates the divisions that existed even within the Jewish community about how best to challenge Nazi antisemitic policies and atrocities.