Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe

Description

Mark Mazower's Hitler's Empire is a provocative account of the rise and fall of Nazi Europe by one of Britain's leading historians. Hitler's empire was the largest, most brutal and most ambitious reshaping of Europe in history. Inspired by the imperial legacy of those such as the British, the Third Reich cast its shadow from the Channel Islands to the Caucasus and ruled hundreds of millions. Yet, as Mark Mazower's groundbreaking new account shows, it was an empire built on an illusion. From Hitler's plans for vast motorways crossing an ethnically cleansed Russian steppe, to dreams of a German super-economy rivalling America's, Mazower reveals the lethal fusion of mass murder, modern managerialism and colossal incompetence that underpinned the Nazi New Order. Ultimately Hitler's empire ended up consuming its own, leaving destruction in its wake and finishing not just with the downfall of Germany, but an entire continent. List of Illustrations List of Maps Abbreviations and Acronyms Preface: The View from Varzin Introduction PART 1: For Greater Germany 1 Germans and Slavs: 1848–1918 2 Versailles to Vienna 3 Expansion and Escalation: 1938–40 4 The Partition of Poland 5 Summer 1940 6 War of Annihilation: Into the Soviet Union 7 Make This Land German for Me Again! 8 Organizing Disorder: 1941–2 PART 2: The New Order 9 Making Occupation Pay 10 Workers 11 Ersatz Diplomacy 12 The Final Solution: the Jewish Question 13 Collaboration 14 Eastern Helpers 15 Opposition 16 Hitler Kaputt! PART 3: Perspectives 17 We Europeans 18 The New Order in World History Illustrations Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements Follow Penguin