Generation des Unbedingten : das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes

Explains the war crimes organized and perpetrated by the RSHA as made possible by a combination of the generational identity of its top personnel, its loose and flexible structure, and the removal of all limits due to the war. Most of its leaders grew up during World War I and the period of runaway inflation, when security broke down and existing institutions were discredited. They saw themselves as an elite; they wanted to save the German "Volk" from the degeneration of liberalism and of racial mixing with the Jewish enemy. Most of them were active in militant "völkisch" student organizations, and after university they were recruited by the SD and the Gestapo, which, together with the criminal police, were welded into the RSHA in 1939. Describes the structure of the RSHA, an organ of the party rather than of the government. Many of the leaders alternated between the office and the field; as commanders of Einsatzkommandos they were ruthless. Chronicles the constant radicalization of crimes against Jews and others, culminating in genocide, for which the RSHA was responsible. After the war, the Allies at first prosecuted the criminals, but their determination waned with the Cold War. Later attempts of German state prosecutors to bring the perpetrators to justice were often frustrated by legalisms. Includes bibliographical references (pages 878-929) and index. 964 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm