The Racial State

'The greatest strength of the book is the way in which Burleigh and Wippermann demonstrate the 'all-pervasive racism of the Nazi state'. They capture the obsessive nature of Hitler's racism, while sensibly concluding that 'racial anti-Semitism' was its 'most important element' … The major importance of The Racial State, however lies rather in the following chapters, on the persecution of the 'Gypsies' (Sinti and Roma), the mentally, congenitally and hereditarily ill, 'Rhineland bastards', 'asocials' and homosexuals, all of which groups were perceived as threats to the Nazis' vision of a purified and homogenous national community. If the Jews were perceived as the chief, demonic threat, these other victims were also seen as intolerable blemishes, to be eliminated with measures of uninhibited violence ranging from compulsory sterilisation/castration/abortion and often fatal incarceration to systematic murder.' The Times Literary Supplement

• List of illustrations; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Introduction: why another book on the Third Reich?; Part I. The Setting: 1. How modern, German, and totalitarian was the Third Reich? Some major historiographical controversies; 2. Barbarous utopias: racial idealogies in Germany; 3. Barbarism institutionalised: racism as state policy; Part II. The 'Purification' Of The Body Of The Nation: 4. The persecution of the Jews; 5. The persecution of Sinti and Roma, and other ethnic minorities; 6. The persecution of the 'hereditarily ill', the 'asocial', and homosexuals; Part III. The Formation Of The 'National Community': 7. Youth in the Third Reich; 8. Women in the Third Reich; 9. Men in the Third Reich; Conclusion: National Socialist racial and social policy; Notes; Bibliographical essay; Index.