"Mulligan's study examines the attempts by various individuals and groups in German military and civilian agencies to adopt a more pragmatic occupation policy in the Soviet Union after 1941. It confirms the traditional view of the administrative chaos of National Socialist Germany, and the racial basis of Hitler's policy in the east. The author, a staff member at the National Archives, provides a thorough discussion of the limited and temporary successes achieved by the reformers. Their efforts enabled the German military, whatever the intentions of its commanders, to prolong the war with all the consequences that this entailed for Jews, Germans, Russians, and others. Fortunately for the rest of the world, these changes were frustrated by the Red Army and by Hitler's refusal to compromise. Students of the history of WW II are in Mulligan's debt for the thoroughness of his research and, more important, for the provocative questions raised by his work. For upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice
?Mulligan's study examines the attempts by various individuals and groups in German military and civilian agencies to adopt a more pragmatic occupation policy in the Soviet Union after 1941. It confirms the traditional view of the administrative chaos of National Socialist Germany, and the racial basis of Hitler's policy in the east. The author, a staff member at the National Archives, provides a thorough discussion of the limited and temporary successes achieved by the reformers. Their efforts enabled the German military, whatever the intentions of its commanders, to prolong the war with all the consequences that this entailed for Jews, Germans, Russians, and others. Fortunately for the rest of the world, these changes were frustrated by the Red Army and by Hitler's refusal to compromise. Students of the history of WW II are in Mulligan's debt for the thoroughness of his research and, more important, for the provocative questions raised by his work. For upper-division undergraduates and above.?-Choice