Document Collection: The Persecution and Extermination of the European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933-1945.
Final Report Abstract
The document edition „Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945“ makes available for the first time a collection of key sources on the persecution of the Jews by the „Third Reich“ that is representative of the material available, thematically comprehensive, and edited to scholarly standards. The documents are selected and contextualized with reference to the latest research on the Holocaust and offer an indispensable resource for researchers as well as a solid foundation for use by a wider public and in history education. The volumes are published by the De Gruyter publishing house. The edition comprises 16 volumes with a total of nearly 5,500 documents and more than 13,000 pages. The series is structured chronologically and according to three geographical areas: the German Reich with the Protectorate; Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; and Northern and Western Europe. Each volume contains around 300 carefully selected documents from numerous archives across the world. Most of the documents are published here for the first time. The aim is to offer the greatest possible range of perspectives: records generated by the perpetrators appear alongside documents written at the time by victims of persecution, together with contemporary accounts by ›third parties‹ from within the countries concerned or by foreign observers. In each volume, the documents are preceded by an in-depth introduction reflecting the latest research. To facilitate orientation through the collection, each volume has several indexes including a thematic index, and each of the volumes covering several different countries (volumes 5, 12, 13, and 14) includes a synoptic chronology of events. The source material for the edition is scattered across archives spanning almost the entire globe. Only a portion of the material is held in German archives: the greater part is held by archives in the countries affected by the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. Overall, more than 400 archives were consulted in Europe and in the rest of the world. Documents in languages other than German were translated for publication from more than 20 languages. All major aspects of the persecution and murder of the Jews are covered, though the focus of the collection is on the years of the „final solution“ between 1941 and 1945. Geographically, the edition covers all countries and regions affected by the persecution and murder of the Jews (from Norway to German-occupied North Africa), though the greatest weight is given to those regions where the largest number of Jews were murdered (in other words German-occupied Poland and the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union including the Baltic states). Three volumes of the edition cover Poland and two cover the occupied Soviet territories. The project to create the edition was a cooperation between three institutions: the German Federal Archives, the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ), and the Chair for Modern and Contemporary History (Prof. Ulrich Herbert) at the University of Freiburg. An editorial board, including the project directors from the three institutions involved, was responsible for the planning and selection of the documents and for final overall editing. For the different volumes, qualified specialists were recruited to research the documents and provide the scholarly commentary. The project was originally envisaged as being complete in eight years, following on from a preparatory project of 11 months’ duration that was supported by different funding. However, the unexpected volume of work involved meant that the project had to be extended. The final volume of the edition was published in 2021 (vol. 15: Hungary) and in May 2023 the completion of the project was marked by an international conference in Berlin. As a continuation of the original project, the translation into English of the entire German edition has been under way since 2014 („The Persecution and Murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945“, PMJ) and will be completed in 2029.
Publications
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Deutsches Reich 1933–1937.
Gruner, Wolf (Ed.)
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Deutsches Reich 1938 – August 1939.
Heim, Susanne (Ed.)
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Polen September 1939 - Juli 1941.
Friedrich, Klaus-Peter (Ed.)
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Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I: Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung.
Hoppe, Bert & Glass, Hildrun (Eds.)
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Deutsches Reich und Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren September 1939 – September 1941.
Löw, Andrea (Ed.)
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West- und Nordeuropa 1940 – Juni 1942.
Happe, Katja; Mayer, Michael; Peers, Maja & Dreyfus, Jean-Marc (Eds.)
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Polen: Generalgouvernement August 1941-1945.
Friedrich, Klaus-Peter (Ed.)
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Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten II.
Hoppe, Bert (Ed.)
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West- und Nordeuropa Juni 1942 - 1945.
Happe, Katja; Lambauer, Barbara & Maier-Wolthausen, Clemens (Eds.)
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Besetztes Südosteuropa und Italien.
Berger, Sara; Schmid, Sanela; Lewin, Erwin & Vassilikou, Maria (Eds.)
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Das KZ Auschwitz 1942–1945 und die Zeit der Todesmärsche 1944/45.
Rudorff, Andrea (Ed.)
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Slowakei, Rumänien, Bulgarien.
Hutzelmann, Barbara; Hausleitner, Mariana & Hazan, Souzana (Eds.)
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Deutsches Reich und Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren Oktober 1941 - März 1943.
Heim, Susanne (Ed.)
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Deutsches Reich und Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren April 1943 - 1945.
Hauff, Lisa (Ed.)
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Polen: Die eingegliederten Gebiete August 1941 - 1945.
Loose, Ingo (Ed.)
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Ungarn 1944–1945.
Fritz, Regina (Ed.)
