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"In 1941, as Nazi Germany began its disastrous campaign against the Soviet Union, Hitler's other campaign, to exterminate European Jewry, was also commencing in earnest. What began with organized executions carried out by the Einzatsgruppen evolved into systematic genocide, reaching its frenzied final moments just as the Wehrmacht was meeting defeat on the military front. These campaigns--and Germany's failure--were inextricably linked, Yaron Pasher tells us in Holocaust versus Wehrmacht. Pasher argues, in fact, that the major share of the logistical problems faced by the Wehrmacht during World War II stemmed from Hitler's obsession with securing the resources--especially from the Reichsbahn railway--needed to implement the "Final Solution." To a degree never fully recognized or understood, Hitler's anti-Semitic ideology was his war's undoing. Through four major Wehrmacht military campaigns--Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk in the east and Normandy in the west--Pasher explores this fatal contradiction in Hitler's efforts to dominate the European continent. As Operation Typhoon, the sequel to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, got underway in November 1941, organized train transports began carrying Jews to the East--with the last trains taking Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz just as the Allies invaded Western Europe and moved inexorably to encircle the Third Reich. In these years, this book shows us, the trains transporting Jews could have carried men, machines, and fuel to depleted and trapped divisions in the Caucasus, and later, to the Western Front. As the Germans moved deeper into Soviet territory, they became increasingly dependent on train transport--which entailed converting Soviet railway line to German specifications; and yet, however successfully this conversion was completed, the trains that might run on these rails were working elsewhere in service of the Final Solution, leaving the Wehrmacht's overextended armies without the resources to survive, let alone win, their final battles. In the end, what Hitler called "the Jewish problem" was his downfall. In documenting the distribution of Germany's resources and operational capabilities through four major campaigns, Holocaust versus Wehrmacht offers a clear picture of the Nazis' military objectives as inseparable from--and finally, fatally susceptible to--Hitler's and his henchmen's other, ideological war to rid Europe of Jews"-- Provided by publisher.

"Pasher argues that a major share of the logistical problems confronting the German army throughout their military campaigns in World War II stemmed from Hitler's obsession with implementing the "Final Solution"--i.e., the forced removal and eradication of Europe's Jews. Pasher persuasively makes the case that the resources for that ideological enterprise clearly undermined the Wehrmacht's efforts to achieve its military objectives"-- Provided by publisher.

Modern war studies

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1: Operation Typhoon and German Deportations to the East

1. Operation Barbarossa: From Minsk to Moscow

2. Operation Typhoon: The Battle for Moscow

3. The German War Economy

4. Soviet Capabilities

Part 2: Operation Reinhard and the Downfall at Stalingrad

5. The Wehrmacht and the SS: Operating on Parallel Lines

6. From German Blue to Russian Uranus

7. Jewish and Military Proportions: Reinhard versus Stalingrad

8. The State of the Reichsbahn in Winter, 1942-1943

Part 3: The Battle of Kursk and the Height of the Final Solution

9. On the Road to Another Disaster

10. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Footnote or Major Operation?

11. The Allied Invasion of Sicily

Part 4: The Extermination of Hungarian Jewry and the Allied Invasion of Normandy

12. A Long and Winding Road

13. Risk and Fear of Invasion

14. the Destruction of Army Group Center

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) > Europe, Eastern > Influence.

World War, 1939-1945 > Campaigns > Eastern Front.

World War, 1939-1945 > Atrocities > Eastern Front.

World War, 1939-1945 > Campaigns > France > Normandy.

World War, 1939-1945 > Transportation > Germany.

Europe, Eastern > Ethnic relations.

Germany > Armed Forces > History > World War, 1939-1945.