RT Review
T1 Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe, Robert S. Wistrich (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007) xiv + 404 pp., 55.00
JF Holocaust and genocide studies
VO 23
IS 2
SP 306
OP 308
A1 Pauley, Bruce F.
LA English
PB Oxford University Press
YR 2009
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1814479309
AB The origins of Adolf Hitler's genocidal antisemitism have intrigued historians ever since the Führer's rise to power. Robert Wistrich has traced Hitler's obsession with the Jews back to his youth in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, in particular his experiences in Vienna between 1907 and 1912. Wistrich's thesis is that Hitler's “völkisch paranoia reflected the identity crises of those German Austrians who felt increasingly on the defensive in the wake of Slav encroachment and Jewish emancipation” (p. 7). In his words, “this Jewish rise in social status, economic weight and cultural influence was typically seen as undermining long-established traditions, Christian values, and ethnic-national solidarity” (p. 9).
K1 Rezension
DO 10.1093/hgs/dcp028