A provocative and insightful analysis that sheds new light on one of the most puzzling and historically unsettling conundrumsWhy did the Holocaust happen in Germany, of all places? How did a country known for its culture and refinement turn so rabidly anti-Semitic? Why did a nation where Jews had full civil rights and many opportunities-a place that Jews had eagerly flocked to in the early twentieth century to escape racist persecution in Poland and Russia-turn upon them so violently just a few decades later? Countless people have grappled with these questions, but few have come up with answers as original and perceptive as those of German historian Götz Aly. Tracing the prehistory of the Holocaust-from the 1800s to the Nazis' assumption of power in 1933-Aly shows that German anti-Semitism did not originate with racist ideology or religious animosity, as is often supposed. Instead, through striking statistics and economic analysis, he demonstrates that it was rooted in a more basic emotion: material envy.Aly's groundbreaking account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate for years to come.

Acknowledgments and Translator's Note ixIntroduction: The Question of Questions 11. Jewish Emancipation 13?2. The Anxiety of German Nationalism 42?3. Anti-Semitism as a Political Force 65?4. The Mainstream's Dangerous Indifference 86?5. War, Defeat, and Jew Hatred 99?6. Weak Masses, Strong Race 127?7. The National Socialist People's Party 181?Epilogue: A Story with No End 219Notes 235?Bibliography 253?Index 277