Vordenker der Vernichtung : Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung

Analyzes the role of the economists, population economists, and other social scientists employed by various Nazi agencies, who grasped at the opportunity to apply, without the usual restraints and with the legitimization of Nazi racist ideology, their theory of an optimal ratio between population and resources, to be achieved by a drastic reduction of population through transfer, starvation, sterilization, and mass killing. Jews were the foremost victims of this policy. The first step was a rationalization of the economy; liquidation (rather than Aryanization) of Jewish businesses was one measure to this end. Deprived of their livelihoods, Jews became "unproductive eaters". The experts calculated the costs of maintaining the Jewish population, even on a starvation level, as against the much lower value of their labor. The ghettos were never more than an interim solution. On the basis of documents and protocols, traces steps to the Final Solution mainly in Poland but also in other regions of eastern and southeastern Europe, and the careers of many of the experts, whose recommendations as a rule became the basis for immediate action. Includes indexes. 539 pages ; 21 cm