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Essay on The Racial State by Michael Burleigh
Both Michael Burleigh of the London School of Economics and Wolfgang Wippermann of the Free University of Berlin have written previous related monographs based on primary sources, but in this volume they synthesize a wide range of existing literature about the racial programs of the Third Reich. Burleigh and Wippermann stresses that racial anti-Semitism and racial ideology took particularly strong root in Germany during the nineteenth century, which later enabled a fanatical Nazi regime with the active support of professional elites and the acceptance of large segments of the German public to pursue a unique, hierarchical racial utopia. Although they develop a convincing and sometimes vivid picture of how racial ideology was transformed into Nazi practice, specialists will not find this book entirely to their taste.
The authors present compact and generally accurate descriptions of Nazi policies toward Jews, Sinti, Roma, other ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and those considered hereditarily ill and asocial. They also cover the racial aspects of Nazi policies and programs for German youth, women, and in a less successful chapter, men. The two authors generally refrain from detailed chronological development, but do offer revealing examples from selected primary sources of racial laws, first-person accounts of killing actions, and police reports on public attitudes.
Some observers might quibble with the authors' expansive definition of racial programs. Nazi leaders certainly considered positive programs for "Aryan" women and youth essential to the continuation and supremacy of the race, but did that motive supersede all others, and did motive alone turn these programs into racial efforts?
With such a broad topic, Burleigh and Wippermann must pick and choose what to emphasize. They seem particularly eager to show the participation and sometimes the initiatives - by professionals and technocrats in the design and implementation of racial programs leading to, and including, mass murder....
