Preface

This book on the origins of the Final Solution is part of a wider project for a multivolume comprehensive history of the Holocaust. This role shapes its conception and format in three fundamental ways. First, within this wider project as conceived of by Yad Vashem, it is just one of three volumes devoted to an examination of the development of Nazi Jewish policy. Since it will follow a volume on the prewar years, September 1939 is the clear starting point for this volume, and it makes no attempt to cover the earlier years beyond brief background references. It will precede a volume on the implementation of the Final Solution, and here there is no clear and unambiguous temporal dividing line between origins and implementation that would be valid for all regions of Europe under German occupation. We have chosen March 1942, the point when the Germans were poised to liquidate the Polish ghettos and gas Jews in Belzec, to receive the initial transports from France and Slovakia, to renew deportations from the Reich, and to launch the second wave of killing on occupied Soviet territory. In our opinion this cluster of fateful events marks the most reasonable dividing point between the origins and implementation of the Final Solution and the one best suited to our interpretational framework.

Second, while this volume was one of three specifically commissioned to focus on Nazi policy making, most of the remaining volumes of the series cover the histories of each national Jewish community in Europe under the impact of the Holocaust. Thus, in contrast to some recent works that have ambitiously sought to synthesize the history of the perpetrators and victims into a single narrative, this volume makes no such attempt to include the perspective and experience of the victims other than where the initiatives and tactics of Jewish leaders, particularly Rumkowski in Lodz and Czerniakow in Warsaw, played an important role in shaping Nazi policy. It does not seek to do superficially and redundantly what most of the other volumes in the series will do in great detail.

Third, when this wider multivolume project was originally conceived, it was immediately recognized that no project involving so many authors either could or should aspire to interpretational uniformity. It was accepted that different scholars would have different perspectives, approaches, and emphases, and that this pluralism inherent in the world of scholarship should be on display in the series. Discerning readers will note that the two authors of this volume articulate interpretations that differ in some small ways. We have made no attempt to force our views into a single mold but rather, in the spirit of the wider project, have let each interpretation speak for itself.

The authors are grateful to a number of institutions whose help has been indispensable. For their generous financial support for research, Christopher Browning would like to express his thanks for fellowships from the DAAD, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Institute for Advanced Study on the campus of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro and Ina Levine Scholar in Residence Awards from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and for the sabbatical and Regency Advancement Award programs of Pacific Lutheran University, a Fulbright research fellowship, and a W. R. Kenan, Jr., Leave from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also grateful for the cooperation and support of the archivists and staffs at the Yad Vashem Archives, the Archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes formerly in Bonn, the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz and Berlin, the Bundesarchiv-Militärchiv in Freiburg, the Zentrale Stelle des Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg, the Berlin Document Center, the U.S. National Archives, the Archivum Panstwowe in Warsaw, the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade, and the Landgerichten of Nürnberg-Fürth, Bonn, Hanover, Cologne, and Konstanz.

Jürgen Matthäus thanks the archivists at the Bundesarchiv Berlin, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung Berlin. While the opinions contained in the relevant parts of the book are his own and do not reflect the opinions of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he is grateful for the permission of the museum’s International Archival Programs Division and its Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies to pursue this project outside his official functions as museum historian.

Over the years numerous colleagues have generously shared their critical insights and provided valued support for our work. We would like specifically to thank Raul Hilberg, Michael Marrus, Yehuda Bauer, Saul Friedländer, Peter Hayes, Jonathan Steinberg, Eberhard Jäckel, Ulrich Herbert, Dina Porat, Richard Cohen, Israel Gutman, Dov Kulka, George Mosse, Yaacov Lozowick, Henry Friedlander, Gerhard Weinberg, Helmut Krausnick, Karl Schleunes, Thomas Sandkühler, Konrad Kwiet, Dieter Pohl, Jürgen Förster, Christian Gerlach, Hans Mommsen, Nechama Tec, and Klaus-Michael Mallmann. For the shortcomings and deficiencies that remain, we are of course fully responsible.

Christopher R. Browning

Jürgen Matthäus