Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Rhodes
Publisher: Vintage
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $7.96
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Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 24373
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
ASIN: B0012E3J9C
Publication Date: December 18, 2007
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Amazon.com Review
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
A major contribution to the history of the Holocaust from the acclaimed author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the part played by the Einsatzgruppen--the professional killing squads deployed in Poland and the Soviet Union, early in World War II, by Himmler's SS. And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy.
The first plan, initiated in July 1941, condemned the Jews of eastern Europe to slaughter by the Einsatzgruppen, who went on to execute 1.5 million men, women and children between 1941 and 1943 by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar--massive crimes that have been underestimated or overlooked by Holocaust historians. Rhodes documents the organizing and carrying out of this program and introduces the professional men--economists, architects, lawyers--who were the program’s commanders and officers, as well as the "ordinary men" who did most of the actual killing.
The second plan, initiated in December 1941, was directed at the Jews of western Europe. By then, Rhodes shows, the face-to-face killing of hundreds of thousands had so brutalized the SS that even Himmler was shocked into ordering the development of a less "personal" means of murder--the notorious gas chambers and crematoria of the Holocaust’s second wave. Rhodes shows, further, that Hitler and Himmler intended the Jews to be only their first victims; their plan was to open up Russia to German colonization by destroying more than 30 million Slavs and members of other ethnic groups.
Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust and World War II.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 Puts the Holocaust in a broader perspective June 8, 2008
Charles Goldman
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
B. Willis (Canada)
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
Jon Bamford (Melbourne, Australia)
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
Grey Wolffe (North Waltham, MA United States)
6 out of 6 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
Mr. M. Dunnell
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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