Heinrich Himmler

Abbreviatons and Glossary; Prologue; Part I: The Young Himmler; 1 Childhood and Youth; 2 The Student of Agriculture; 3 Struggle and Renunciation; 4 A New Start in Lower Bavaria; 5 The Party Functionary; 6 Reichsfuhrer SS; Part II: In the Third Reich; 7 The Take-Over of the Political Police; 8 From Inspector of the Prussian Gestapo to Chief of the German Police; 9 The State Protection Corps; Part III: The Order; 10 Ideology and Religious Cult; 11 Himmler's Leadership Style; 12 Himmler the Educator; 13 The SS Family; Part IV: Ambition and Disappointment; 14 War Preparations and Expansion; 15 War and Settlement in Poland; 16 A New Racial Order; 17 Repression in the Reich; 18 Shifting Borders: The Year 1940; Part V: The Greater Germanic Reich: Lebensraum and Ethnic Murder; 19 An Ideological War of Annihilation; 20 From Mass Murder to the 'Final Solution'; 21 The Murder of the European Jews; 22 Settlement Policy and Racial Selection; 23 The 'Iron Law of Ethnicity': Recrui

Peter Longerich is Professor of Modern German History at Royal Holloway University of London and founder of the College's Holocaust Research Centre. He has published widely on the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, including Holocaust: The Nazi Murder and Persecution of the Jews, also published by Oxford University Press, which is widely recognized as the standard account of the Nazi machinery of mass murder and the steps by which it unfolded.

There have been several studies of this enigmatic man, but Peter Longerich's massive biography, grounded in exhaustive study of the primary sources, is now the standard work and must stand alongside Ian Kershaw's Hitler, Ulrich Herbert's Best and Robert Gerwarth's Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich as one of the landmark Nazi biographies. As the author of a celebrated study of the Holocaust, Longerich is better able than his predecessors to situate Himmler within the vast machinery of genocide. And he brings to his task a gift for capturing those mannerisms that are the intimate markers of personality. Christopher Clark, London Review of Books [An] almost encyclopaedic coverage Jane Caplan, Times Literary Supplement The most thorough study of Himmler yet written ... A superb book, wonderfully translated. Choice [The book's] bulk is consummate with the seriousness of its subject matter and, as the definitive life if this why-faced monster of terror, it is unlikely to be bettered. History Today Excellent ... well crafted and engaging ... comfortably surpassing the offerings of previous biographers, it is surely set to become the definitive work for a generation. Roger Moorhouse, BBC History supremely enlightening New York Times Book Review There have been many attempts to describe the life and opinions of Heinrich Himmler, but this one ... is the first thorough scholarly biography to appear New Statesman very well documented Mail on Sunday A superbly researched account Booklist a work of staggering scholarship Literary Review splendid Sunday Telegraph A masterpiece. Richard J. Evans A highly impressive biography, resting on exhaustive exploration of available sources. Ian Kershaw Gigantic book The Sunday Times Splendid...Longerich gives it a depth and breadth it has previously lacked. Sunday Telegraph