- Summary
- “Profiles of Mass Murder: The Einsatzgruppen Officers” attempts to answer one of the most important questions concerning the Holocaust: how could so many Germans willingly contribute to the torture and murder of the Jews? The dissertation examines the behavior and the motivation of the perpetrators most directly involved in the mass shootings of the Soviet Jews, the officers in the notorious SS Einsatzgruppen. Relying on the records from the German post-war trials, “Profiles of Mass Murder” analyzes the career of individual officers and their actions before, during and after their time in the Einsatzgruppen. The work describes the various types of killers and concludes that not each and every one of the officers responsible for the massacres were willing tools of the Nazi leadership, driven by blind anti-Semitic fanaticism. Rather, human beings faced with the situation in the killing fields responded differently and most of these officers were motivated by career considerationsA\, submission to orders, peer pressure, human weakness and other factors.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Langerbein, Helmut.
- Published
- 2000
- Locale
- Germany
- Notes
-
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 266-272).
Photocopy. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Dissertation Services, 2002. 23 cm.
Dissertations and Theses
