National Socialist Racial Policy

No aspect of National Socialist Germany has received more attention in recent years than its racial policy. During its twelve years in power, the National Socialist regime systematically robbed, deported, terrorised and eventually murdered millions of people across Europe. Europe's Jews were from the beginning the pre-eminent victims, but there were others. Recent years have seen a massive amount of new research into National Socialist racial policy, triggered by the opening of archives in Central and Eastern Europe that were once closed. Many elements have become clearer, but some questions remain stubbornly unanswered. Who, exactly, was responsible for the decision to murder Europe's Jews and when, exactly, was this decision taken? How much did ordinary Germans know about the genocide? Was there, indeed, such a being as an 'ordinary German' in the sense implied by the question? Was the mass-murder of the European Jews, and the accompanying transfer of populations, as mysterious as is sometimes alleged? Or was it part of a rational plan for the economic re-ordering of Europe? Some of the questions are not merely difficult: they are and remain intensely controversial. This book does not pretend to provide an answer to all these questions. It is not a history of the Holocaust, and much has had to be omitted. It is a study of the evolution of racial policy, which means that events are mostly seen through the eyes of the perpetrators.