German-language Books Published in 2017–2021

Abstract

This short, well-written book is the first (!) published monograph in German about the so-called Operation Reinhardt, during which the Germans murdered some 1.8 million Jews in German-occupied Poland between 1942–1943. Lehnstaedt details the operation from the perspective of the perpetrators, showing the complex decision-making processes, structure, and implementation of the extermination. He also presents the viewpoint of the Jewish victims, citing extensively from Jewish survivors’ testimonies as well as offering an account of the postwar trials of the perpetrators and the place of the main extermination camps in the culture of memory.