ebooks Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction by Gillian Clark in History

Description

Model Nazi tells the story of Arthur Greiser; the man who initiated the Final Solution in Nazi-occupied Poland. Between 1939 and 1945; Greiser was the territorial leader of the Warthegau; an area of western Poland annexed to Nazi Germany. In an effort to make the Warthegau 'German;' Greiser introduced numerous cruel policies. He spearheaded an influx of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans. He segregated Germans from Poles; and introduced wide-ranging discriminatory measures against the Polish population. He refashioned the urban and natural landscape to make it 'German.' And even more chillingly; the first and longest standing ghetto; the largest forced labour program; and the first mass gassings of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were all initiated under Greiser's jurisdiction. Who was the man behind these dreadful policies? Catherine Epstein gives us a compelling biographical portrait of Greiser the man: his birth in the German-Polish borderlands; his rise to Nazi prominence in Danzig; his actions as party leader in the Warthegau; and his trial and execution in postwar Poland. Drawing on a remarkable array of German and Polish sources; she shows how nationalist obsessions; political jealousies; and personal insecurities shaped the policies of a man who held remarkable power in his Nazi fiefdom. Throughout; Epstein confronts a burning question of our age: why do individuals imagine genocide and ethnic cleansing to be solutions to political problems?