Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The Final Solution in HistoryWas the extermination of the Jews part of the Nazi plan from the very start? Arno Mayer offers astartling and compelling answer to this question, which is much debated among historians today.In doing so, he provides one of the most thorough and convincing explanations of how the genocidecame about in Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?, which provoked widespread interest and controversywhen first published. Mayer demonstrates that, while the Nazis’ anti-Semitism was always virulent, it did not becomegenocidal until well into the Second World War, when the failure of their massive, all-or-nothingcampaign against Russia triggered the Final Solution. He details the steps leading up to thisenormity, showing how the institutional and ideological frameworks that made it possible evolved,and how both related to the debacle in the Eastern theater. In this way, the Judeocide is placedwithin the larger context of European history, showing how similar ‘holy causes’ in the past havetriggered analogous – if far less cataclysmic – infamies. |
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alive the memory Armistice Day Auschwitz became emblematic Berlin Bhikhu Parekh Białystok Bloch Cambridge casualties charged with keeping chroniclers collective memory commemoration of Yom complex at Douaumont concentration camp construction cult desectarianization dogmatists Douaumont E. H. Carr Europe's Fallen Soldiers France's Frankfurt am Main French soldiers killed Gypsies Halbwachs Hannah Arendt historians History and Memory Holocaust horrors of Auschwitz Jewish torment Jews Judeocide Lowenthal Marcuse Maurice Halbwachs Max Weber Mémoire Collective memorial authority memorial complex memory and history memory of Auschwitz military millions Mitterrand monument Museum nation Nazi Germany's negationists Nietzsche official Oradour-sur-Glane Paris past Personal remembrances Pierre Vidal-Naquet political Presses Universitaires Principle of Hope Problem of Ideology REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING Revolution rites of Verdun sectarian selective forgetting slaughter of World social memories Suhrkamp Theresienstadt Theresienstadt concentration camp ulti universal memory Universitaires de France unlike Vashem in Jerusalem vengeance Verdun victims Walter Benjamin's Warsaw Ghetto Yad Vashem Yom Hashoah York