Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust

by Richard Rhodes

Book Overview

In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen's role in the Holocaust. These special task forces, organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375708227
• ISBN13: 9780375708220
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Socialization to killing

Masters of Death is a raw and disturbing account of the mobile killing squads that made their insidious way through the occupied territories of the east during the early years of the war. Victims were Jews, partisans, communist officials, and anyone else who happened to get in the way. I've read most books on nazis and the holocaust, noticing that many of them contain the same stories. Rhodes, however, seems to have uncovered rare eyewitness and perpetrator testimonies, documents, and other research. He does not give watered down versions of events; it's no holds barred in graphic detail. (The story of the infants and toddlers that were locked in that shack were the most difficult pages I've ever read). Some critics do not like the way Rhodes tends to digress. He throws in his own theories of the nature of evil and violence, sometimes making the reader wonder if this is a book on psychology, philosophy, or the Einsatzgruppen. These horribly evil men were not made into monsters overnight. The mindset was gradually formed over many years: the years following WW1, when Germans developed an intense hatred of Jews and Bolshevism; and during the early days of the concentration camp system within Germany in the 1930s, when the "Deaths Head" units underwent their brutalization phase. Prisoners then were mainly dissidents, criminals, and social "undesirables." No, there was no mass slaughter at this time, but torture and executions were routine. There were truly repugnant figures here. Under Himmler, Globocnick seemed to be in charge. I've read about him in other books, and I can tell you that he was a beast in human form, along with Christian Wirth, who oversaw the euthanasia program and helped to set up the "Operation Reinhard" death camps. (Surprisingly, Wirth is never mentioned in this book). Frederich Jeckeln is another official that makes the stomach churn. I don't think his level of cruelty and sadism could be surpassed. (He was known for his "sardine" method of killing.) The ironic thing is that the brains behind this senseless slaughter- Himmler and Heydrich- were wimps in real life and would never have been able to pull a trigger on anyone. Members of the Einsatzgruppen were from all socioeconomic levels, and not all of them were callous brutes. Some of them were unable to cope with their grisly task. There are bizarre accounts of nervous breakdowns, suicides, and descents into insanity. Definitely one of the most powerful and gripping books to come along in a long time.

Superb Look At A Horrifying Historical Phenomenon!

This new book by Richard Rhodes is, in my opinion, a quite interesting attempt to exhaustively explore the terrible brutality of the S.S. Einsatzgruppen (Special Group) created under Heinrich Himmler's specific direction to carry out an loosely organized mass extermination of Eastern captive populations as the Wehrmacht pressed into Poland and the Soviet Union during the successive Eastern campaigns. I purposely have used the term "captive populations" to connote that it was a population much more inclusive of local residents, including communist collaborators, dissidents, gypsies, and other "undesirables", targeted for extinction rather than being limited strictly to Jews. It is, I believe, a demonstrable mistake to try to argue that the Third Reich was primarily interested in ridding itself of its Jewish population. Remember, the initial population of Jews so murdered were not deported German Jews, but rather indigenous Jews living in Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania, part of the captive populations. We do well to remember that the Nazis' stated purpose for conducting the entire Eastern campaign was to gain what Hitler often referred to as "Liebenstraum", or "living room" for future German expansion and colonization. Thus, the Third Reich intended from the onset of hostilities in one fashion or another to forcibly displace the native population through a combination of techniques, including extermination, sustained slave labor, and starvation. Historical questions regarding the etiology of the resulting Nazi policy of extermination of European Jews revolve around a single question: was it Hitler's intent from the beginning to do so, or did the policy evolve from pragmatic and existential circumstance? The first line of argument, what is often called the "intentionalist"premise, is that as he stated in "Mien Kampf", the Fuhrer always intended to wipe out the Jewish peoples of Europe, and that his campaign proceeded, cautiously and tentatively at first, more due to political and logistical considerations than with anything else. The opposing argument, regarded to the "functional' premise, finds the genesis of the policy of systematic genocide of the Jews in the welter of events and circumstances that arose from the onset of the Eastern campaign as early in the fall of 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. This line of thought finds evidence in the Nazi's evolving efforts to employ ever more efficient and effective methodologies to deal with the captive populations of the East. Obviously, for either perspective to continue to have passionate adherants fifty years later indicates that both perspectives have considerable merit. Having said this, I find the so-called "functional" argument more persuasive and more consistent with the bulk of historical record. This perspective is not an fact attempt to attempt to argue that Hitler had no premeditation or predisposition regarding the eventual fate of European Jews and other targeted populations. Rathe

The Horror

Warning: Richard Rhodes's "Masters of Death" is one of the most horrific books you're ever likely to read. It details very completely the history of the roving death squads who followed Adolf Hitler's armies into the conquered territories of the Soviet Union and unleashed the opening salvos of what would later become known as The Holocaust. Many people today think of The Holocaust in terms of Auschwitz and the other death camps. What tends to be forgotten is that the Eisatzgruppen units that started the mass killings of Jews racked up a death toll at least as high as those of the camps. And in most instances, the murders by these minions were even less humane, if that's possible.Rhodes, a fine writer and first rate historian, pulls no punches. Wherever possible, he uses the first hand accounts of both the survivors and the perpetrators to tell his gruesome story. The ghastly pictures that accompany the book only begin to hint and the true horror of the events described. Along the way, Rhodes explores the psychology of the murderers, particularly that of both Hitler and of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, the man who allowed his whole personality to be subjugated to the Fuhrer. Rhodes also provides enough of the history and ideology of Nazi Germany to set the proper context.At just under three hundred pages of text, the book makes its point concisely. Lest the reader think that what happened has been confined to the dustbin of history, Rhodes points out that Einsatzgruppen methods were recently resurrected by the death squads in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.Overall, an incredibly powerful and important book that serves as a grim reminder of the darker side of human nature.

Understanding the Holocaust

Rhodes is one of my favorite writers of non-fiction. His book The Making of the Atomic Bomb remains the best book I have ever read on the subject. He has also written interesting books on disease and the psychology of murder. In fact, this book seems to have grown from his study of the work of Lonnie Athens, an American criminologist, who was the subject of Rhodes' last book, Why They Kill. Here Rhodes investigates the SS-Einsatzgruppen, the teams of killers in Hitler's Germany who would begin the slaughters that would become the Holocaust.When most of us think of the Holocaust, we think of death camps like Auschwitz, the gas chambers and crematoria. What most people forget is that the earliest killings were done by groups of SS-Einsatzgruppen in the field. Literally millions of people were simply murdered through beatings, firing squads and other "basic" methods long before the construction of the first death camps. It was the effect of this "face-to-face" slaughter on the morale and morals of the men who carried it out that would lead to the more industrial, impersonal methods of the death camps in later years.Rhodes reminds of something very important in this book: yes, the Holocaust was a horrible thing but it was conducted by human beings, not monsters. The Holocaust did not just suddenly appear as a particularly horrible idea. The development of the Holocaust was a process that can be traced and, possibly, understood. And Rhodes makes an excellent stab at trying to understand what happened. In the process, he examines the psychology of people like Heinrich Himmler and many of the other people who attempted to carry out the Final Solution. Plus, he gives a fresh look at an important part of history that gets swamped in our knowledge of the Holocaust. It is well worth the read.

A memorial in print

Rhodes has written a memorial in print to the victims of the holocaust. Too often, histories of this subject devolve into numbers or catalogs of atrocities. Rhodes has been able to convey the humanity of the victims and give a searing sense of the inhumanity of the perpetrators. His use of personal accounts and documentary evidence is masterful and moved me deeply. His character studies of the perpetrators, particularly Himmler, are enlightening and chilling.This book should be required reading.