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In this pathbreaking work of intellectual and cultural history, James M. Glass provides a provocative new answer to the questions that bedevil us to this day: How and why did so many ordinary Germans participate in the Final Solution? And how did they come to regard Jews as less than human and "deserving" of extermination?
Glass, a leading scholar of political psychology and political theory, argues that the answers lie in the rise of a particular ethos of public health and sanitation that emerged from the German medical establishment and filtered down to the common people.
Building his argument on a trove of documentary evidence, including the records of the German medical community and of other professional groups, he traces the development, in the years following World War I, of theories of "racial hygiene" that singled out the Jews as an infectious disease that had to be eradicated if the Aryan race were to survive - as "life unworthy of life," in the words of Nazi propagandists and German scientists.
In their zeal to preserve the health of the German Volk, he observes, the people of the Third Reich became willing participants in the Final Solution, thinking of themselves not as executioners, but as highly motivated actors in a culture-wide sanitation project with the objective of purifying blood and genes.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), Antisemitism, Eugenics, Causes, History, Holocauste, 1939-1945, Antisémitisme, Eugénisme, Histoire, War, Antisemitismus, Eugenik, Judenvernichtung, Rassenhygiene, Nationalsozialismus, Euthanasie, Eugenetica, Nationaal-socialisme, Antisemitisme, Holocaust, BMBF-Statusseminar gndPlaces
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20th centuryShowing 3 featured editions. View all 3 editions?
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1
"Life Unworthy of Life": Racial Phobia and Mass Murder in Hitler's Germany
May 1, 1999, Basic Books
in English
0465098460 9780465098460
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2
Life unworthy of life: racial phobia and mass murder in Hitler's Germany
1997, BasicBooks
in English
0465098460 9780465098460
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Libraries near you:
WorldCat
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3
Life unworthy of life: racial phobia and mass murder in Hitler's Germany
1997, Basic Books
in English
0465098444 9780465098446
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Book Details
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"The argument of indifference is vastly overstated."
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- Created April 29, 2008
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August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |