Bloomsbury Academic Nazi Justiz: Law of the Holocaust

Death camps are the most enduring image of the Holocaust, but they were only the final expression of a destruction process that began in 1933. In that year the Nazi regime mobilized members of an entire society to destroy their neighbors. Lawmakers, judges, attorneys, and the rest of the legal system played a crucial role in reassuring good Germans that a war on Jews was legitimate. Nazi Justiz emphasizes the prewar years of a robust Western European nation at peace with all countries. Such emphasis demonstrates that a Holocaust can happen in any country sharing the heritage of Western civilization, and warns of the inevitable outcome once ordinary people are targeted in a destruction process. Using original decrees, court decisions, and first-hand recollections of participants, Nazi Justiz documents how the German legal system transformed itself into a criminal organization. We see not only how the legal system shaped everyday life, but how good Germans and the business community benefited from the Holocaust. Germany in the 1930s―before the war―is emphasized. Such emphasis demonstrates that a Holocaust can happen in any country sharing the heritage of Western civilization, and warns of the inevitable outcome once ordinary people are targeted in a process of destruction. No other book has so much information on the Holocaust in peacetime Germany; indeed, the chapters on property confiscation and residential concentration are unique. With a richness of detail evoking an immediacy normally found in novels, Nazi Justiz offers a chilling portrayal of persons filled with so much goodness that they become oblivious to horrors they cause. Review "How did the citizens of Germany, a decent, fair-minded people, allow themselves to become partners in he most heinous act of genocide in history?...Miller contends in his well-researched book this was accomplshed primarily by the systematic implementation of laws that followed a simple formula: "Identify, Ostracize, Confiscate, Concentrate, Annihilate.,."recommended for any student of either history of the darker inclinations of mankind. In this book, Miller illustrates vividly the maxim 'All evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing.'""- Tri-City Herald ?How did the citizens of Germany, a decent, fair-minded people, allow themselves to become partners in he most heinous act of genocide in history?...Miller contends in his well-researched book this was accomplshed primarily by the systematic implementation of laws that followed a simple formula: "Identify, Ostracize, Confiscate, Concentrate, Annihilate.,."recommended for any student of either history of the darker inclinations of mankind. In this book, Miller illustrates vividly the maxim 'All evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing.'"?- Tri-City Herald ?Miller uses a format developed by Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews to describe the Nazi regime's progressively harsher policy towards German Jews from 1933 onward. Miller is especially useful in providing anecdotes and brief illustrations that show the effect of Nazi legal measures on single individuals. The examples of cowardice and venality by Germany's professional classes, professors and physicians especially, are devastating. Miller writes clearly; the book is recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty.?-Choice ?One would wish this book a wide readership....the general reader...will find explanations and insights into a labyrinthian legal system that made it possible to segregate the Jews in Germany, to exploit, impoverish and, at the end, murder them.?-The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle "One would wish this book a wide readership....the general reader...will find explanations and insights into a labyrinthian legal system that made it possible to segregate the Jews in Germany, to exploit, impoverish and, at the end, murder them."-The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle "Miller u