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

In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the part played by the Einsatzgruppen – the professional killing squads deployed in Poland and the Soviet Union, early in World War II, by Himmler’s SS. And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy. Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust the World War II.