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Birds of Prey: Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers, and the Holocaust in Poland

byPhilip Blood

Philip Blood examines the Luftwaffe's role in Nazi conquest and genocide in Poland, challenging the image of airmen as professionally separate from racial war. Aviation units, security forces, administrators, and “ordinary” soldiers participated in occupation, forced labor, plunder, mass violence, and the destruction of Jewish communities. The book follows institutions and individuals as military operations merged with ideological policy. Blood shows how perpetrators normalized participation through careerism, obedience, opportunity, and antisemitism, revealing that the Holocaust depended not only on specialized killing units but on the broader machinery of the German armed forces.

Publisher

ibidem-Verlag

Publication date

2021

Format

Print edition

Pages

440

ISBN

9783838215679