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Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Rhodes
Category: Book
Buy New: $26.64
New (5) Used (6) from $18.42
Avg. Customer Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 336564
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 352
ASIN: B000AXRTYW
Publication Date: May 7, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book
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Amazon.com
Masters of Death is Richard Rhodes's chronological account of the Third Reich's Einsatzgruppen (a hand-picked task force) and its death work--the executions of 1.5 million people, Jews and non-Jews--in Russia and Eastern Europe from 1941 through 1943. Rhodes sees these operations (the victims were, almost exclusively, shot) as a ghastly prelude to the subsequent (and much more written-about) horrors of the death camps. In chilling--and occasionally excessive--detail, Rhodes describes the killings and the reasons behind the Reich's cautious, rather than precipitous, escalation of the same: the military's "concern for German and world opinion"; the need to improve methodology; and finally, the need to "condition" the troops, thereby avoiding "disabling trauma." Rhodes makes good use of firsthand accounts and outlines the effects the larger war (Pearl Harbor; the failure to defeat Britain) had on Hitler's attempted obliteration of European Jewry. His chapters on the nature of evil seem hurried and not particularly fresh. --H. O'Billovich
Product Description
In Masters of Death, 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 army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar.
These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers. In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign’s architects as well as its “ordinary” soldiers and policemen, and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 Puts the Holocaust in a broader perspective June 8, 2008
As an American Jew born in 1942, I heard vague stories about the Holocaust from my family and friends. Always, the focus was on the death camps and the ovens. Later, of course, I read in more detail about antisemitism in general and World War II. However, reading this book brought home to me the broader context of the attempt to destroy the Jewish people and the fact, which Rhodes focuses on, that the death camps were the end stage of a process that was even more horrible.
This was a painful book to read, but necessary for me to fully appreciate the dimensions of the Holocaust. I now feel that everyone should have the opportunity to read this book. I am not saying it is the best on the subject (there are many I have not read), nor is it perfect. The writing is uneven and some of Rhodes' theories are unproven. But I do strongly recommend this book.
Terrible but true April 7, 2008
This is not a fun read but there is so much in this book that is interesting. I thought Rhodes does a great job putting this history together. He explains how, who & why this happened. He also does a very thorough job explaining the Einsatzgruppen. It is also interesting to hear some of the stories & conflicts these groups had with the regular Wehrmacht soldiers. It will leave an impression on you.
 A hard slog. January 20, 2008
I found this book extremely well written and detailed, but it was very tough to get through due to the never-ending accounts of mass murder. There is only so much description of shootings of women and small children that I can handle. Not to mention the 'efficient' way in which the Germans went about the Final Solution - particularly the 'sardine packing' method of mass killing.
I won't be reading anymore holocaust books for a while as this one just about gave me nightmares. Who needs fiction when modern history can provide more that enough horror stories to turn even the hardest stomach.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a no BS account of the Einsatzgruppen and their horrific work.
Not An Easy Book to Read or Stomach February 14, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
In 1939 Hitler told the Senior Members of the Nazi Party and the Government of Germany, that the only way to insure that Germany could win the War in the East for Lebensraum would be to 'neutralize' the Jews. The Jews had been the reason that Germany had lost WWI, by their 'control' of the governments in France, England, Russia and the USA. Only by their destruction could Germany ensure the 'future' for their sons and grandsons.
But how do you get rid of 11 million (based on the SS's own count) people? Do you drive them into the open marshes in Eastern Poland and let them die, do you deport them to Siberia... no you have to eliminate them, so that they do not come back to 'haunt' your children. Using this logic the SS created the Einsatz and Sonner Kommando groups to kill all of Europe's Jews. But killing is both psychological and physically brutalizing, not to mention burying all the bodies (which have a habit of decaying and marking the burial areas with escaping gas).
Where they could, the SS used auxillaries, mostly Poles, Lithuanians and Ukrainians, who were only too happy to help eliminate the Jews. For the last hundred years they had been killing Jews intermittently in Pogroms. Now they were being given 'legal' authority to rob, steal, rape, pillage and brutalize thousands of their neighbors. Break out the booze and party favors!
This is not a book for the squeemish, parts of it can be very difficult to read especially the graphic descriptions of the killings. But it needs to be documented for the deniers and other idiots (are you listening Mel Gibson's father) who don't believe it was possible to kill that many people and get rid of the bodies. But after the killing fields of Rwanda and Cambodia, how could anyone deny that people are capable of anything.
A book that every history student or teacher should read. February 6, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book blows away the myth of a unknowing wermacht and civilian populations complicity in the holocaust. It makes one think that anyone could stoop to mass murder given the right circumstances. Shockingly scary and super relevant in todays world of heightened racial and religeous tension.
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