The Nazi Holocaust haunts the modern imagination as one of the most compelling examples of the human capacity for organised atrocity on a mass scale. This authoritative account of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy from 1939 to 1942 seeks to answer some of the fundamental questions about what actually happened, and why, between the outbreak of war and the emergence of the Final Solution. Christopher Browning assesses the historians’ interpretations and offers his own insights, based on detailed case studies uncovering important and telling new evidence. ‘The clarity as well as economy with which he writes, his firm grasp of the evidence and the balanced judgement he brings to its interpretation make this a most impressive performance … He uses his flair for uncovering new archive material to throw light on the attitudes and roles of a variety of people who became involved in carrying out the Final Solution.’ The Times Literary Supplement