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The Unwritten Order Hitler's Role in the Final Solution Peter Longerich Tempus 160pp L17.99 ISBN 0-7524-1977-3
The Villa, the Lake, the Meeting
Wannsee and the Final Solution
Mark Roseman
Allen Lane: The Penguin Press 152pp L9.99 ISBN 0-713-99570-X
ADOLF HITLER'S ROLE and that of other Nazi leaders in the decision-making processes of the Nazi Third Reich that eventually resulted in that regime's attempted mass murder of European Jewry during the Second World War is the subject of the two books reviewed here. Both cover the same ground, but in a far from satisfactory manner.
At first sight both books appear as good examples of compact, erudite, and informed history writing in tracing the meandering evolution of Hitler's and the Nazi Third Reich's antiJewish policies from the 1920s through to their European-wide genocide of the Jews that finally commenced in two stages during 1941-42 and lasted until near the end of 1944. Erudite and informed, that is, until one probes deeper. Given the scientific precision with which one must approach these subjects today, Mark Roseman and the Penguin Press make astonishing claims that their book offers `fresh insights' when it is based almost entirely on published monographic and other printed sources.
Given that one of the books that Roseman relies upon is Longerich's original study, Politik der Vernichtung Eine Gesamtdarstellung der nationaloziahstischen Judenverfolgung (1998), the basis for Longerich's new book discussed below, it is hardly surprising that Roseman often parallels Longerich and that at key points he, like Longerich before him, fails adequately to weave...