Short description
An examination of the role of leading scholars - philosophers, historians and scientists - in Hitler's rise to power and eventual war of extermination against the Jews. This reissue contains a new introduction by historian Martin Gilbert.
Review
This discussion of the part palyed by scholars in Germany's crimes against the Jewish people - crimes that intelligent opinion now takes for granted - first appeared in 1946 from the Yiddish Scientific Institute. Weinreich (1893-1969), a Latvian Jew by ethnic origin, was himself a doctor of a German University, and saw German scholarship from inside before he fled to New York (where he became a professor). He writes with understanding as well as righteous indignation about his former colleagues' misdeeds, for under Hitler's rule in Germany anti-semitism was preached not only by fanatics, but by leading learned men in great universities, who bore part to the guilt for several million deaths. Sir Martin Gilbert adds a brief foreword. (Kirkus UK)