Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine - Tapa dura

Lower's excellent book confirms many findings of the new regional studies over the past decade. . . . Lower demonstrates a mastery of both German sources and those accessible only in the native language (in this case Ukranian) of the occupied population.--German Studies Review An excellent study that bravely attempts to put the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in comparative context, and uses newly opened archives to extend our knowledge of the true horror of the era.--Europe-Asia Studies [A] tightly written case study. . . . Unlike most occupational studies, Lower details the close relationship between traditional European imperialist thinking, Nazi racial ideology, and the Holocaust itself. . . . Lower mined German and former Soviet archives in Berlin, Moscow, Kiev, and Washington, as well as local archives in Zhytomyr, to produce this well-researched monograph. . . . Lower's book is a worthy contribution to the history of World War II, the Holocaust, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine.--Russian Review Lower has written a brilliant study of the Zhytomyr region, where Hitler and Heinrich Himmler established an experimental colony of local Germans and some Ukrainians. . . . Lower's brilliant study demonstrates the insane cruelty of Hitler's empire. This is one of the best studies of the evil reality of Hitler's dream and will be an important addition to every collection on WWII. Essential.--Choice As a study of the relationship between the Nazi core and periphery and of Himmler's grotesque and murderous ambitions to repopulate the Ukraine with Germans (represented in miniature by the Hegewald colonial outpost), this is a monograph of considerable value which deserves a wide readership among scholars and students of the Holocaust and genocide.--Journal of Genocide Research First-rate.--Journal of Modern History [Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine] offers an excellent regional account of the Holocaust, carefully unpacking the interaction between higher orders and lower level initiatives in the unfolding of genocide.--American Historical Review A very useful contribution to the field of Holocaust studies. . . . An excellent analysis of Nazi empire-building and the Holocaust in the Zhytomyr district.--English Historical Quarterly Lower's excellent study offers important insights into the nature of National Socialist racial visions and efforts to transform colonial fantasy into reality, as well as into the tragic consequences for the Jewish and non-Jewish populations of Ukraine.--Holocaust and Genocide Studies A carefully nuanced picture of Ukrainian responses to Nazi occupation. . . . Both specialists and general readers seeking new insights into the Holocaust and the history of Nazi occupation in Eastern Europe will benefit greatly from [this] important study.--Journal of Modern History Focusing on the Zhytomyr region--where Adolf Hitler's headquarters were located in summer 1942--this excellent book reconstructs the regime's attempt to implement its colonial vision by murdering the Jewish population, enslaving the Ukrainians, and transforming the local ethnic Germans into the new Master Race of this rich agricultural region. Lower has uncovered fascinating documentation.--Times Literary Supplement An exemplary local study of . . . the administrative entity encompassing much of the German-occupied Ukraine in World War II.--Central European History Valuable. . . . An assured, meticulous, and accessible presentation. . . . This is a monograph of considerable value which deserves a wide readership among scholars and students of the Holocaust and genocide.--Journal of Genocide Research An exemplary local study. . . . Lower integrates the Ukrainian version of the Shoah as one component--albeit a major one--within this fastidiously researched, thorough, insightful, and flowingly readable examination of the Nazi racial vision as implemented in one locale of the occupied East.--Central European History Review

Creating Hitler's German colony in Ukraine On 16 July 1941, Adolf Hitler convened top Nazi leaders at his headquarters in East Prussia to dictate how they would rule the newly occupied eastern territories. Ukraine, the "jewel" in the Nazi empire, would become a German colony administered by Heinrich Himmler's SS and police, Hermann Goring's economic plunderers, and a host of other satraps. Focusing on the Zhytomyr region and weaving together official German wartime records, diaries, memoirs, and personal interviews, Wendy Lower provides the most complete assessment available of German colonization and the Holocaust in Ukraine. Midlevel "managers," Lower demonstrates, played major roles in mass murder, and locals willingly participated in violence and theft. Lower puts names and faces to local perpetrators, bystanders, beneficiaries, as well as resisters. She argues that Nazi actions in the region evolved from imperial arrogance and ambition; hatred of Jews, Slavs, and Communists; careerism and pragmatism; greed and fear. In her analysis of the murderous implementation of Nazi "race" and population policy in Zhytomyr, Lower shifts scholarly attention from Germany itself to the eastern outposts of the Reich, where the regime truly revealed its core beliefs, aims, and practices.