The Unwritten Order: Hitler's Role in the Final Solution (History of Nazism)

THE DEFINITIVE STUDY OF ADOLF HITLER'S ROLE IN THE PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GREATEST ACT OF GENOCIDE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

`a compelling account of how Hitler came to take the decision to kill the Jews.'
--RICHARD EVANS, author of In Defense of History.

The Holocaust differs from other genocides in recent history for one main reason: there is no other example in which a minority was annihilated systematically and as completely as possible on the orders of a head of state and through the apparatus of government. The fact that the murder of the European Jews was the result of conscious decisions made at the highest levels of the Third Reich has been under-emphasized in the research on the Holocaust. Through the discovery of new documents, the central role that Hitler played in the persecution and murder of the European Jews can be proved much more conclusively than was possible just a few years ago. Although it would be a mistake to put the murder of the Jews down to Hitler's will alone (especially as numerous studies have brought out the shared responsibility and active involvement of a large number of accomplices), it is time to make clear once again that Hitler was the driving force behind the radicalisation of the National Socialist policy of extermination. To put it simply: without Hitler there would have been no Holocaust. To reconstruct Hitler's central role in the Final Solution represents a particular challenge. Hitler treated the murder of the Jews as a matter of the utmost secrecy and was careful wherever possible not to leave behind any written orders about the murder of Jews. Wherever his instructions on this matter are recorded he has used codified language. He kept away from the implementation of the orders and feigned ignorance, even to his closest friends and colleagues. Under these conditions, the surviving source material can only be described as fragmentary. The aim of the book is to offer documentary proof of Hitler's central role in the murder of the European Jews. In order to achieve this aim, various documents and fragments of documents have been pieced together and the codified language of the dictator deciphered.

Peter Longerich is Professor of German History at Royal Holloway, University of London and Director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and 20th Century History. He was an expert witness in the celebrated trial between David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt/Penguin Books, his role to demonstrate that the murder of millions of Jews was conducted on Hitler's orders. His other books include:

THE BROWN BATTALIONS: A HISTORY OF THE SA
`Balanced, stimulating and well written... essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of the Nazi Party.'
--Richard Besse!, English Historical Review

HITLER'S DEPUTIES
`Excellent.' --Ian Kershaw

THE POLICY OF ANNIHILATION: A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE NAZI PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
'An important book characterised by deep research and reasoned conclusions that eschew sensationalism and exude common sense... essential.'
--Christopher Browning