Timothy Snyder, “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin” (Basic Books, 2011)
New Books in Eastern European Studies
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The Power of National Stereotypes
The Germans were indeed extremely efficient at killing Jews, but their planning was really marked by improvisation and it took them a while to become efficient. Up until 1941, no one's imagination, at least in any way that we have recorded on paper, beyond the idea that the Jews were going to be transported away violently. The possibility is murdering Jews where they are always thought as being possible - not deportation. So what the Germans learned from Himmler over the course of the second half of WWII is that there is a possibility for what they call 'the final solution'
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