Read more
In this pioneering biography of a frontline Holocaust perpetrator, Alex J. Kay uncovers the life of SS Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Filbert, responsible as the first head of SS Task Force 9, a mobile killing squad, for the murder of more than 18,000 Soviet Jews - men, women and children - on the Eastern Front. He reveals how Filbert, following the political imprisonment of his older brother, set out to prove his own ideological allegiance by displaying particular radicalism in implementing the orders issued by Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich. He also examines Filbert's post-war experiences, first in hiding and then being captured, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. Released early, Filbert went on to feature in a controversial film in the lead role of an SS mass murderer. The book provides compelling new insights into the mindset and motivations of the men, like Filbert, who rose through the ranks of the Nazi regime.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Childhood, youth and early adulthood, 1905-32; 2. Nazi Party membership and career in the SS Security Service, 1932-9; 3. Brother's imprisonment and career stagnation, 1939-41; 4. SS-Einsatzkommando 9 and deployment in the East, June-July 1941; 5. Genocide of Belarusian Jewry, July-October 1941; 6. Suspension from the Reich Security Main Office and reinstatement until the war's end, 1941-5; 7. Post-war submergence and reintegration into West German society, 1945-59; 8. Arrest and trial, February 1959-June 1962; 9. Imprisonment and early release, 1962-75; 10. Wundkanal and aftermath, 1975-90; Concluding thoughts; Sources and literature cited; Index.
About the author
Alex J. Kay is Senior Academic Coordinator at the Institute of Contemporary History, Berlin. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Humboldt University, Berlin, and is author of Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940-1941 (2006) and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is also co-editor of Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization (2012) and was awarded the Journal of Contemporary History's first George L. Mosse Prize in 2006.
Summary
A pioneering biography of a frontline Holocaust perpetrator which sheds new light on the motivations of those who served the Nazi regime. Alex J. Kay uncovers the life of Alfred Filbert who led an SS killing squad which was responsible for the murder of more than 18,000 Soviet Jews.
