The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust - Couverture rigide

Pringle, Heather

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0143014404 ISBN 13 : 9780143014409

Editeur : Penguin Canada, 2004

Synopsis

What happens when science falls prey to a deadly political agenda?

Pre-history, according to Heinrich Himmler, had to be rewritten. The chief of the SS and architect of the Nazi death camps was convinced that archaeologists had long ignored the accomplishments of a primeval race of blond-haired, blue-eyed conquerors—the Aryans. Himmler believed that Germany’s ancestors had evolved in the icy barrens of the Arctic where they had ruled as an invincible master race. Now, he theorized, only in select parts of the world did some true Aryan blood remain.

Himmler’s history was pure fiction, but his conviction was unshakeable. In 1935 he founded the Ahnenerbe—a research institute to manufacture archaeological evidence for political purposes—and set about recruiting a bizarre mix of adventurers, mystics and reputable scholars to help rewrite all of human history. Researchers were sent on public expeditions and secretive missions to Iraq, Finland, Tibet and beyond, backed by the power of the Third Reich.

Drawing on extensive original research, Heather Pringle paints a compelling and sinister portrait of the Ahnenerbe and its role in the Holocaust, and reveals the German scientists and scholars who allowed their research to be used to justify extermination. Combining the energy and storytelling skill of the best fiction with the chilling detail of history, The Master Plan is a groundbreaking story of delusion and excess, of scientific and political abuse on a global scale.

A propos du livre

About the Author :

Heather Pringle is a journalist and author who has written on archaeology and ancient cultures in numerous magazines, including Discover, National Geographic Traveler and New Scientist. In January 2002, she won the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for magazine journalism. She is the author of three books, including The Mummy Congress. She lives in Vancouver.

From Publishers Weekly :

Considering the thousands of volumes covering every aspect of the Nazis, it's becoming increasingly difficult to say anything new about their dreadful era. Nevertheless, Pringle (The Mummy Congress), a contributing editor to Discover magazine, gamely steps up to the plate—and has produced a fascinating volume detailing the Nazis' crackpot theories about prehistory and the Indiana Jones–style lengths they went to prove them. Employing a team of researchers, Pringle investigates Heinrich Himmler's private think tank, the Ahnenerbe, which dispatched scholars to the most inhospitable and distant parts of the world to discover evidence of ancient Aryan conquests and the Germans' racial superiority. Some believed their own bizarre garbage; others perverted the facts for personal advancement or prostituted their reputations for the greater glory of Hitler. While it would be otherwise easy to laugh off the Ahnenerbe's ludicrous theories, Pringle argues that the institute provided the "academic" justification for the Holocaust and assembles a powerful body of evidence to that effect. Though one may wonder just how central the Ahnenerbe actually was to Hitler's thinking, when Pringle meets one of the most sinister of Himmler's scholars, his pride about the institute's "research" is distinctly disquieting. This is first-rate popular history—supported by an immense amount of scholarly apparatus in a range of languages. (Feb. 15)
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À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Canada
• Date d'édition: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0143014404
• ISBN 13: 9780143014409
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Nombre de pages: 256