Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing

Abstract

Alex Kay’s Empire of Destruction is an excellent study of systematic acts of mass killing carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II. The book synthesizes some of the most up-to-date scholarship on different victim groups, particularly German-language works, offering readers a wide-reaching yet focused study of the connections between seven killing campaigns directed against: people considered mentally and physically disabled within Germany and, later, in occupied territories; Polish ruling classes and elites; Jews; Sinti and Roma; captive Red Army soldiers; the Soviet urban population within occupied territories; and civilians targeted for reprisal killings (primarily in rural Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland and the USSR). Holocaust and Genocide Studies experts will recognize many of the specific findings in the book, but the breadth of topics covered means there should be new information for all readers to discover. The book’s great contribution is that it coherently brings together a range of findings, offering a single point of reference for innovative research from the past two decades and beyond.