The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution

Looking nothing like the Nordic ideal he advocated, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, was short, flabby and balding--his dull, pedantic exterior disguising the caustic, cowardly, Machiavellian, immensely cruel master of deceit within. Breitman, history professor at the American University in Washington, D.C., presents compelling evidence that the extermination of Jews was an early goal of Himmler, a Bavarian and lapsed Catholic, and his boss Adolf Hitler. Drawing on previously untapped German records, as well as other source materials, Breitman contends that the Nazi leadership crystallized its plan for mass destruction of the Jews as early as March 1941--months earlier than most historians have assumed. This engrossing, detailed study constitutes a powerful refutation of revisionist scholars who claim that Hitler did not plan the Final Solution in advance but instead improvised it out of either military or political frustration. History Book Club alternate. (May)