Preface to the First Edition

In spite of the ever-growing literature on Nazism and the Third Reich, this is the first comprehensive Who's Who on the subject to be written in any language. The objective of the work is to provide a reliable and stimulating source of information and reference for serious students and for the interested lay reader concerning what is a pivotal period in twentieth-century European history. The book is arranged as a collection of compact, succinct biographies listed in alphabetical order and giving basic information about the careers of nearly 350 individuals who were prominent or significant in the Third Reich. Through their lives I have tried to tell the story of Nazism, to link each biography to a facet of the Third Reich so that the interlinking of their careers comes to form an intricate web reflecting the multitude of cross-connections that made up Hitler's Germany. The individuals represented in this volume exercised a very wide range of occupations, social and political roles. In addition to the top rank Nazi Party leaders, SS and Gestapo personalities, Wehrmacht and diplomatic personnel, I have included civil servants, jurists, industrialists, intellectuals, churchmen, academics, artists and entertainers. The actors, writers, film makers, dramatists, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, philosophers and historians who remained in Nazi Germany and achieved some prominence are an important, if neglected, facet of the reality of the Third Reich. I have also given attention to the brain-drain from Nazi Germany, including in particular some of the distinguished scientists (physicists, mathematicians, chemists, etc.) and writers who were forced to leave their homeland for racial or political reasons. Entries dealing with Hitler's academic experts in the fields of eugenics, anthropology and racial ideology, with the SS doctors, Commandants of concentration camps and Higher Police and SS leaders implicated in the 'Final Solution' emphasize the criminal, totalitarian character of the regime. On the other hand considerable information is also provided about the German Resistance which embraced a broad span of opinion, including Protestant theologians, Catholic politicians and priests, Social Democrats, conservatives and army leaders. The most difficult problem in preparing this work was one of selection. Had my focus been narrowed only to Nazi Party leaders, the list of potential candidates would still have run into thousands. On what basis then could I make an adequate selection of entries which would constitute a representative cross-section of German society in the period between 1933 and 1945? To what extent could one disregard the careers of individuals who were primarily active under the Weimar Republic? Many of the subjects in this volume were still alive after 1945 - could one ignore their subsequent fate? Finally, how far should the length of the various biographies reflect the relative importance of their role and according to what criteria was this to be decided? Inevitably, my own attempt to resolve these dilemmas will reveal to a certain degree subjective tastes, preferences and areas of interest and I have not shrunk from exercising value-judgements where this seemed warranted. This is one historical subject where claims to absolute objectivity and detachment sound somewhat artificial and forced, not to say dishonest. In many cases the existing historiographical literature provided a fairly reliable guide as to who should be included but with regard to lesser known figures (though not unimportant in their sphere) the task was more difficult and access to information by no means easy. Indeed, it is doubtful if this work could have been written had I not had the good fortune of working at the Wiener Library as editor of its Bulletin from 1974-5 until 1980. The personal files, documentary material, press cuttings and historical works in its great collection on Nazism and the Third Reich provided the indispensable bedrock on which this volume is based. I should like to thank the staff of the Wiener Library in London and its director Professor Walter Laqueur; Mrs Johnson, Mrs Kehr and Janet Langmaid for guiding my first steps; Lord Weidenfeld for suggesting the project and Linda Osband for her editorial assistance; also the staff of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and of Der Spiegel magazine in Hamburg, as well as Joachim Hoelzgen of the London bureau and professor M. R. Marrus (Toronto). This book is primarily a work of reference but it is also intended to stimulate the interest of the general reader and provide him with a basic tool for further research. To facilitate its readability I have adopted a narrative, chronological approach to each entry and avoided the temptation of providing footnotes for citations. However, a comprehensive bibliography at the back of the book should provide the interested reader not only with some of the background material used in the preparation of this study but also with suggestions for further reading. I have also added a glossary to explain all the major German terms used in the text. A biographical dictionary such as this is not intended to be a substitute but rather a necessary resource material for additional research. The swollen grandeur, the monstrous horror and the tragedy that was Nazi Germany naturally cannot be encompassed in its entirety by a collection of biographies, however representative; but the lives which have been captured in these pages can provide the reader not only with reliable information but also with the human (and all too often inhuman) dimension which is the sine qua non for understanding this crucial period in modern history. Back

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