Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II

Rating:
Summary: A good place to start
Review: This is an excellent introduction to this most depressing and distressing topic. Prof. McKale makes his case rather well that Hitler did indeed order the Holocaust. (It's hard to believe that there are those who still maintain his innocence, but they are out there.) His final chapters reviewing current controversies surrounding the Holocaust are very good. For one seeking a broad overview, this is an excellent choice. He provides sufficient detail and analysis about the various stages and components of this most dreadful enterprise to allow the reader to understand the whole picture, but does not overwhelm the reader with a myriad of details more appropriate to a specialized study. His bibliography and endnotes provide a wealth of more specialized works for anyone who discovers a particular interest in some aspect of this wretched business. Mercifully, Prof. McKale spares the reader much of the more grisly details of the murders' methods such as may be found in works such as Richard Rhodes, "Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocast", for example, an excellent work that requires a very strong constitution from the reader. Prof. McKale is not the least bit balanced in his approach: the perpetrators of this murder and their accomplices, whether direct or indirect, are completely guilty and utterly without excuse; the victims -- those actually murdered in the camps or in the field by the SS, the German Army, or the local population -- the victims are totally innocent, ruthlessly murdered simply because they existed. I do not recall one instance where Prof. McKale gave the slightest credence to any proffered rationalization or justification for the murderers' dismal deeds. There were none.

Rating:
Summary: A good place to start
Review: This is an excellent introduction to this most depressing and distressing topic. Prof. McKale makes his case rather well that Hitler did indeed order the Holocaust. (It's hard to believe that there are those who still maintain his innocence, but they are out there.) His final chapters reviewing current controversies surrounding the Holocaust are very good. For one seeking a broad overview, this is an excellent choice. He provides sufficient detail and analysis about the various stages and components of this most dreadful enterprise to allow the reader to understand the whole picture, but does not overwhelm the reader with a myriad of details more appropriate to a specialized study. His bibliography and endnotes provide a wealth of more specialized works for anyone who discovers a particular interest in some aspect of this wretched business. Mercifully, Prof. McKale spares the reader much of the more grisly details of the murders' methods such as may be found in works such as Richard Rhodes, "Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocast", for example, an excellent work that requires a very strong constitution from the reader. Prof. McKale is not the least bit balanced in his approach: the perpetrators of this murder and their accomplices, whether direct or indirect, are completely guilty and utterly without excuse; the victims -- those actually murdered in the camps or in the field by the SS, the German Army, or the local population -- the victims are totally innocent, ruthlessly murdered simply because they existed. I do not recall one instance where Prof. McKale gave the slightest credence to any proffered rationalization or justification for the murderers' dismal deeds. There were none.