Abstract

Following their occupation by the Third Reich, Warsaw and Minsk became home to tens of thousands of Germans. In this exhaustive study, Stephan Lehnstaedt provides a nuanced, eye-opening portrait of the lives of these men and women, who constituted a surprisingly diverse population—including everyone from SS officers to civil servants, as well as ethnically German city residents—united in its self-conception as a “master race.” Even as they acclimated to the daily routines and tedium of life in the East, many Germans engaged in acts of shocking brutality against Poles, Belarusians, and Jews, while social conditions became increasingly conducive to systematic mass murder.

“Lehnstaedt’s powerful work should inspire additional research… Highly Recommended.” • Choice

“Beyond the deft use of social history and original perspective, Lehnstaedt’s contribution is a model of scholarly erudition. It is scrupulous with the use of evidence and painstaking in the presentation of claims. Martin Dean’s English translation is not only free of error, but smooth and concise.” • H-Net

Stephan Lehnstaedt is Professor for Holocaust Studies and Jewish Studies at Touro College Berlin. After receiving his Ph.D. from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, he worked at the German Historical Institute Warsaw and taught at Humboldt University Berlin and the London School of Economics. For his research, he was awarded the medal “Powstania w Getcie Warszawskim” and the commander’s cross of the order “Missio Reconciliationis” in Poland.