The Soviet Union was the largest state in the twentieth-century world, but its repressive power and terrible ambition were most clearly on display in Europe. Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union transformed itself and then all of the European countries with which it came into contact. This book considers each aspect of the encounter of Stalin with Europe: the attempt to create a kind of European state by accelerating the European model of industrial development; mass murder in anticipation of a war against European powers; the actual contact with Europe's greatest power, Nazi Germany, during four years of war fought chiefly on Soviet territory and bringing untold millions of deaths, including much of the Holocaust; and finally the reestablishment of the Soviet system, not just in the reestablished Soviet system, but in the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. The contributors take up not just high politics but also the experiences of the populations that were affected by them. Divided into four parts, the book deals with Soviet politics and actions mainly in the 1930s; the Soviet invasion and occupation of Poland; German aggression against the Soviet Union as well as plans for occupation and their improvised implementation; and Soviet wartime plans for the postwar period. This volume brings together the best work from a multi-year project sponsored by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, including scholars who have worked with archival materials in numerous countries and whose research is often published in other languages.

"With its ... over thousand] detailed and expansive footnotes drawing on twenty-four different archive collections in eight countries and three continents and an enormous secondary literature, this is one of the best researched regional studies of the Holocaust ever to appear. It is helped by the fact that the authors are also always so cognizant of what was happening elsewhere in Europe at the same time and thus frequently draw out the relationship between seemingly haphazard local decisions and trends across Europe...Indeed, the way in which the book 'makes sense' of complex institutional behavior is at times breathtaking...The precision in the detail and the scope of the contextualization make this one of the more important works to appear on the Holocaust in recent years." . English Historical Review

"This very readable and well documented study fills an important gap in the Holocaust literature: it offers insight into the microcosm reflecting the entire terrifying and murderous scenario of the SS State." . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Ghetto, forced labor camp, concentration camp: All of the elements of the National Socialists' policies of annihilation were to be found in Riga. This first analysis of the Riga ghetto and the nearby camps of Salaspils and Jungfernhof addresses all aspects of German occupation policy during the Second World War. Drawing upon a broad array of sources that includes previously inaccessible Soviet archives, postwar criminal investigations, and trial records of alleged perpetrators, and the records of the Society of Survivors of the Riga Ghetto, the authors have produced an in-depth study of the Riga ghetto that never loses sight of the Latvian capital's place within the overall design of Nazi policy and the all-of-Europe dimension of the Holocaust.

Andrej Angrick, a native of Berlin, is a historian, consultant, and researcher affiliated with the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture. He has published numerous articles about the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and co-edited Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (1999) and Die Gestapo nach 1945: Karrieren, Konflikte, Konstruktionen (with Klaus-Michael Mallmann, 2009), as well as Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord: Die Einsatzgruppe D in der sudlichen Sowjetunion 1941-1943 (2003).

Peter Klein, a Berlin-based historian, consultant, and researcher affiliated with the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture, has published widely on the Holocaust and German occupation in various parts of central and eastern Europe during the Second World War. Klein was the editor of Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/1942 (1997) and a co-editor of Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (1999). He is the author of "Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt" (2009).

Ray Brandon is a freelance translator, historian, and researcher based in Berlin. A former editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, English Edition, he is co-editor, with Wendy Lower, of The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization.

"With its ... over thousand] detailed and expansive footnotes drawing on twenty-four different archive collections in eight countries and three continents and an enormous secondary literature, this is one of the best researched regional studies of the Holocaust ever to appear. It is helped by the fact that the authors are also always so cognizant of what was happening elsewhere in Europe at the same time and thus frequently draw out the relationship between seemingly haphazard local decisions and trends across Europe...Indeed, the way in which the book 'makes sense' of complex institutional behavior is at times breathtaking...The precision in the detail and the scope of the contextualization make this one of the more important works to appear on the Holocaust in recent years." . English Historical Review

"This very readable and well documented study fills an important gap in the Holocaust literature: it offers insight into the microcosm reflecting the entire terrifying and murderous scenario of the SS State." . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

" This] excellent study of the Riga ghetto, informed by Eastern European sources and available now in English translation, provides a precise and ghastly description of what the liquidation] meant for the local Jews. With laudable thoroughness, they describe the organized shooting of Jews, the first form of industrial-scale mass murder." . The New York Review of Books

Ghetto, forced labor camp, concentration camp: All of the elements of the National Socialists' policies of annihilation were to be found in Riga. This first analysis of the Riga ghetto and the nearby camps of Salaspils and Jungfernhof addresses all aspects of German occupation policy during the Second World War. Drawing upon a broad array of sources that includes previously inaccessible Soviet archives, postwar criminal investigations, and trial records of alleged perpetrators, and the records of the Society of Survivors of the Riga Ghetto, the authors have produced an in-depth study of the Riga ghetto that never loses sight of the Latvian capital's place within the overall design of Nazi policy and the all-of-Europe dimension of the Holocaust.

Andrej Angrick, a native of Berlin, is a historian, consultant, and researcher affiliated with the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture. He has published numerous articles about the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and co-edited "Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42" (1999) and "Die Gestapo nach 1945: Karrieren, Konflikte, Konstruktionen" (with Klaus-Michael Mallmann, 2009), as well as "Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord: Die Einsatzgruppe D in der sudlichen Sowjetunion 1941-1943" (2003).

Peter Klein, a Berlin-based historian, consultant, and researcher affiliated with the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture, has published widely on the Holocaust and German occupation in various parts of central and eastern Europe during the Second World War. Klein was the editor of "Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/1942" (1997) and a co-editor of "Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42" (1999). He is the author of "Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt" (2009).

Ray Brandon is a freelance translator, historian, and researcher based in Berlin. A former editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, English Edition, he is co-editor, with Wendy Lower, of "The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization."

On the eve of the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941, Ukraine was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe. Between 1941 and 1944, some 1.4 million Jews were killed there, and one of the most important centers of Jewish life was destroyed. Yet, little is known about this chapter of Holocaust history. Drawing on archival sources from the former Soviet Union and bringing together researchers from Ukraine, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States, The Shoah in Ukraine sheds light on the critical themes of perpetration, collaboration, Jewish-Ukrainian relations, testimony, rescue, and Holocaust remembrance in Ukraine.

Contributors are Andrej Angrick, Omer Bartov, Karel C. Berkhoff, Ray Brandon, Martin Dean, Dennis Deletant, Frank Golczewski, Alexander Kruglov, Wendy Lower, Dieter Pohl, and Timothy Snyder.

The Soviet Union was the largest state in the twentieth-century world, but its repressive power and terrible ambition were most clearly on display in Europe. Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union transformed itself and then all of the European countries with which it came into contact. This book considers each aspect of the encounter of Stalin with Europe: the attempt to create a kind of European state by accelerating the European model of industrial development; mass murder in anticipation of a war against European powers; the actual contact with Europe's greatest power, Nazi Germany, during four years of war fought chiefly on Soviet territory and bringing untold millions of deaths, including much of the Holocaust; and finally the reestablishment of the Soviet system, not just in the reestablished Soviet system, but in the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. The contributors take up not just high politics but also the experiences of the populations that were affected by them. Divided into four parts, the book deals with Soviet politics and actions mainly in the 1930s; the Soviet invasion and occupation of Poland; German aggression against the Soviet Union as well as plans for occupation and their improvised implementation; and Soviet wartime plans for the postwar period. This volume brings together the best work from a multi-year project sponsored by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, including scholars who have worked with archival materials in numerous countries and whose research is often published in other languages.