Masters of Death The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust

The book looks at the role of the Einsatzgruppen and how it was formed, organized and deployed as well as some of its key players. It attempts to explain how men became able to carry out such mass executions by applying criminological explanations of brutalization and exploring other environmental factors the murderers were subjected to. However it does so without defending them or excusing their actions.

The author also examines some of the most important atrocities committed by these killing squads such as, amongst others, Babi Yar and Rumbula. In doing so he goes into extremely graphic detail as recounted by the few who survived, and even some of those carrying out the killings, of how the murders were actually done. The book draws to an end by examining the psychological suffering of the killers and the need for the Nazi regime to find a better more humane way (for the killers that is, not the victims) of killing countless innocent people. The invention of the death camps at Chelmno, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka (and later Auschwitz-Birkenau) was their answer.

Richard Rhodes
Hardcover 335 pages