LEADER 04065ctm a2200361Ii 4500001 227210 005 20181129101320.0 008 120817s2010 ncu rm 000 0 eng d 035 (OCoLC)ocn890319345 040 CCD |beng |erda |cCCD |dOCLCF |dUMI |dLHM 090 DK34.G3 |bS742 2010 049 LHMA 100 1 Steinhart, Eric Conrad, |eauthor. 245 10 Creating killers : |bthe Nazification of the Black Sea Germans and the Holocaust in Southern Ukraine, 1941-1944 / |cEric Conrad Steinhart. 264 1 |c2010. 300 x, 473 pages ; |c29 cm 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 502 |bPh. D. |cUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, |d2010. 504 Bibliographical references (pages 461-473) 520 3 Transnistria, a multiethnic region along southern Ukraine's Black Sea coast that Germany ceded to Romania, was an epicenter of the Holocaust in the conquered Soviet Union. This dissertation explores the role of the area's ethnically German or Volksdeutsche minority in the Holocaust. The region's ethnic Germans, the so-called Black Sea Germans, were the largest Germanophone population to come under Nazi control in the conquered Soviet Union. To secure local German-speakers as the demographic foundation for the future German domination of southern Ukraine, the SS Schutzstaffel deployed a special unit to administer the area's ethnic Germans. Almost immediately, the region's ethnic multiplicity hampered the SS's efforts to identify suitable ethnic Germans to mobilize for the Nazi cause. German officials responded to this ethnic ambiguity by establishing a mercurial occupation regime that undercut Romanian authority by rewarding cooperative local residents with comparatively lavish material rewards and brutalizing allegedly recalcitrant area denizens. In the midst of the SS's Nazification project in the region, Romanian deportation of Jews into rural Transnistria threatened to spread epidemic disease to the region's ethnic Germans. Local SS commanders deployed the region's ethnic German militia forces, the only personnel at their disposal, to murder the Jewish deportees in one of the Holocaust's most intense episodes. Despite having had historically good relations with their Jewish neighbors, local ethnic Germans responded to situational pressures that Nazi rule created--not least of which was the opportunity to clarify their ethnic status in SS eyes by taking part in the Holocaust--and murdered Jews with enthusiasm. This dissertation analyzes the constellation of motivations that moved a group of murderers to participate in some of the Holocaust's most brutal crimes. Based heavily on the example of German killers, scholars have long rejected postwar apologist claims of coercion and highlighted individual agency to explain why perpetrators participate in genocide. While this insight remains key to understanding perpetrator behavior, my research demonstrates that, within the context of war and a violent occupation, the Nazi regime could bring forceful situational pressures to bear on prospective killers that provided it with powerful leverage to encourage them to murder. 530 Electronic version(s) |bavailable internally at USHMM. 590 Dissertations and Theses 650 0 Germans |zUkraine |zTransnistria (Territory under German and Romanian occupation, 1941-1944) |xHistory |y20th century. 650 0 Germans |zUkraine |xHistory |y20th century. 650 0 Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) |zUkraine |zTransnistria (Territory under German and Romanian occupation, 1941-1944) 651 0 Transnistria (Ukraine : Territory under German and Romanian occupation, 1941-1944) |xEthnic relations. 655 7 Academic theses. |2lcgft 856 41 |uhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/817858657?accountid=47978 |zElectronic version from ProQuest 956 41 |uhttp://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib227210/3428405.pdf |zHosted by USHMM. 852 0 |bstacks |hDK34.G3 |iS742 2010 852 |bebook