Nations Have the Right to Kill

Although people view the extermination of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as incomprehensible, rarely is this term used in reference to the First World War, where 9 million people died. In this pathbreaking book, Richard Koenigsberg explores the meaning of these two cases of mass slaughter. Why were young men asked to get out of trenches during the First World War and to run into machine-gun fire? Why did Hitler send Jews to gas chambers? Why did Hitler send his own soldiers into the...
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Although people view the extermination of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as incomprehensible, rarely is this term used in reference to the First World War, where 9 million people died. In this pathbreaking book, Richard Koenigsberg explores the meaning of these two cases of mass slaughter. Why were young men asked to get out of trenches during the First World War and to run into machine-gun fire? Why did Hitler send Jews to gas chambers? Why did Hitler send his own soldiers into the hell of the Second World War--where they perished by the millions? In this exciting investigation into the dynamics of war and genocide, Koenigsberg sheds new light on the sources of societal self-destruction. Based on four decades of research, Koenigsberg shows how Hitler's thoughts about war generated the Holocaust. If nations have no compunctions about sending their best men to die in battle, Hitler reflected, why did he not also have the right as leader of the German nation to send Jews--considered mortal enemies of the German people--to their deaths? The logic of genocide grew out of the logic of warfare. While some view Hitler as an anomaly, Koenigsberg shows how both the Holocaust and two World Wars grew out of an ideology located at the heart of Western civilization: that of nationalism. Based on belief in the absolute reality and profound significance of their nations, political leaders feel that they have a right to kill¿and to ask their people to die.