The author wanted to explore the sheer mechanism of destruction, and as he delved into the problem, saw that he was studying an administrative process carried out by bureaucrats in a network of offices spanning a continent. Understanding the components of this apparatus, with all the facets of its activities, became the principal task of his life. The “how” of the event is a way of gaining insights into perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. The roles of all three will be described in this work. The German office holders will be shown passing memoranda from desk to desk, conferring about definitions and classifications, and drafting public laws or secret instructions in their relentless Dr. against the Jews. The Jewish community, caught in the thicket of these measures, will be viewed in terms of what it did and what it did not do in response to the German assault. The outside world is a part of this history by virtue of its posture as a spectator. Still, the act of destruction was German, and the primary focus in this portrayal is therefore placed on the German conceptualizers, initiators, and implementers of the deed. They constructed the framework within which collaborators in Axis and occupied countries made their contributions to the operation, and they created the conditions that confronted Jewry in a closed ghetto, the roulette wheel of a roundup, or at the entrance of a gas chamber. To inquire into the structure of the phenomenon is to ask the question about the Germans first. -- Adapted from the preface, volume 1, pages ix-x.

Errata slip inserted.

volume 1. Precedents ; Antecedents ; The structure of destruction ; Definition by decree ; Expropriation ; Concentration ; Mobile killing operations -- volume 2. Deportations -- volume 3. Killing center operations ; Reflections ; Consequences ; Implications.