| Edition |
First American edition. |
| Description |
314 pages ; 25 cm |
| Contents |
PART ONE: "ACTS OF VIOLENCE, CARRIED OUT QUITE OPENLY" : the murder of Jews in the daily life of the Einsatzgruppen -- "The brutalization of precious German manpower" : the occupation of Poland. Notes of eastern territories commander Johannes Blaskowitz ; Bloody Wednesday in Olkusz/Ilkenau ; "Foreign Service" -- "Each time a victim was beaten to death they started to clap" : pogroms in Kaunas and elsewhere in Lithuania. "Initially difficult to set a pogrom in motion" ; "Cheers and laughter" ; "If they get their revenge, we're in for a hard time" ; "Total 137,346" -- "Pushed to their psychological limits" : members of the Einsatzgruppen on the stresses and strains of killing. "If the victims didn't do as they were told" : problems during mass shootings ; "It took nerves of steel" : the murder of 33,771 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine (29/30 September 1941) ; "A new and better method of killing had to be found" : the gas-vans -- "Quite happy to take part in shooting" : forced to obey orders : the myth -- "Once again I've got to play general to the Jews" -- "Execution as popular entertainment" : the murder of Jews as a public spectacle. "Soldiers sitting on rooftops and platforms watching the show" ; "Scores of soldiers, some in bathing trunks, watching the proceedings" ; "When the Jews saw how easy it was to be executed" ; "Present at the execution with heads of other authorities" ; "The Twelve Toppers and a little hat" ; "The execution area was visited by scores of German spectators"-- "In the interest of maintaining military discipline" : the massacre of children in Byelaya Tserkov, military chaplains and the Wehrmacht. An officer cadet on the killing of the adults ; Report by the military chaplain, Dr. Reuss, to Lieutenant-Colonel Groscurth ; Report by Wehrmachtoberpfarrer Kornmann ; Lieutenant-Colonel Groscurth's report to C.-in-C. Sixth Army, Field Marshall von Reichenau ; Report by military chaplains Tewes and Wilczek ; Statement by C.-in-C. Sixth army, Field Marshall von Reichenau ; SS-Obersturmführer August Häfner on the killing of the children -- "Practical work for our Führer". Letters by Gendarmerie chief Fritz Jacob ; A Gendarmerie Oberwachtmeister's photographs ; Letters of SS-Obersturmführer Karl Kretschmer -- "His attitude toward the Jews is quite impossible". "The bodies piled up in the streets" ; "The action rid me of unnecessary mouths to feed" ; "Eliminate the Jews once and for all" ; A "quite literally slavish" attitude to the Jews ; "None of the Jews that were killed is any great loss" -- PART TWO: "DELIVERED AND KILLED" : the extermination centres. "Their soldierly conduct is exemplary". Photographs ; Theodor Malzmuller on the "plague boils of humanity" ; Gas-van driver Walter Burmeister on whether he ever thought about what he was doing ; Kurt Mobius on the guilt of the Jews and his own lack of blame ; Interrogation of Adolf Eichmann ; Gauleiter Greiser to Himmler, 19 March 1943 -- "The Wannsee Conference decisions implemented". SS-Untersturmführer Josef Oberhauser on the early days at Belzec ; Erich Fuchs on his duties at Sobibor ; The train journey to Belzec ; "The camp had clean sanitary facilities" ; The first day at Treblinka ; "It was my job to shoot these people" ; Kurt Franz on the end of Treblinka -- "Food in the officers' mess excellent". "I only took part in the murder of some three million people out of consideration of my family" ; "Grabner ordered me to put Zyklon B into the opening" ; "There was Bulgarian red wine and Croatian plum brandy" ; "The highest number of gassings in a day was 10,000" ; "So that in the future it would be impossible to establish how many people had been burnt" : Rudolf Höss of the elimination of the mass graves. |
| Note |
Translation of: "Schöne Zeiten." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Subject |
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Sources.
|
|
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, German.
|
| Added Author |
Klee, Ernst.
|
|
Dressen, Willi, 1935-
|
|
Riess, Volker, 1957-
|
| ISBN |
0029174252 |
|
