Architects of Annihilation

Architects of Annihilation follows the activities of the set of demographers, economists, geographers and planners in the period between the disorderly excesses of the November 1938 pogrom and the fully-effective operation of the gas chambers at Auschwitz in summer 1942. The authors, both journalists and historians, argue that this group of intellectuals, often combining academic, civil service and Party functions made an indispensable contribution to the planning and execution of the Final Solution. More than that, in the economic and demographic rationale of these experts, the Final Solution was only one element in a far-reaching programme of self-sufficiency which privileged the German Aryan population.

Gotz Aly is one of the most able and exciting young German historians working on the Third Reich -- Niall Ferguson
A revelation . . . Aly and Heim marshal their facts meticulously . . . there is never any question of stopping, of drawing breath, before the chronicle is over OBSERVER
This is an important, honest, unsensational, thought-provoking book DAILY TELEGRAPH

Gotz Aly and Susanne Heim are young journalists and historians living in Germany.

Architects of Annihilation follows the activities of the set of demographers, economists, geographers and planners in the period between the disorderly excesses of the November 1938 pogrom and the fully-effective operation of the gas chambers at Auschwitz in summer 1942. The authors, both journalists and historians, argue that this group of intellectuals, often combining academic, civil service and Party functions made an indispensable contribution to the planning and execution of the Final Solution. More than that, in the economic and demographic rationale of these experts, the Final Solution was only one element in a far-reaching programme of self-sufficiency which privileged the German Aryan population.

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