Description

In the Nazi imagination, the USSR was the most powerful Jewish organization in the world. They called it ‘World Enemy No. 1’.

The shocking number of Soviet citizens who lost their lives between 1941 and 1945 – 26 million, more than any other country – is widely known. But the faces and the voices of these victims of Nazism are conspicuously absent. In a pathbreaking new work of history, Jochen Hellbeck restores the USSR to its proper place in the history of the Second World War, arguing that to truly understand the conflict, we must set its axis firmly in Soviet territory.

It was not the Western powers but Communist Russia that Nazi Germany viewed as the greatest threat to its existence. The German crusade against ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ was the driving force of the Nazis’ most extreme violence, and Soviet territory became ground zero for systematic extermination. Only later was this shocking regime of killing extended to all Jews, igniting the Holocaust.

Using newly declassified archives, testimonies, diaries and dispatches from soldiers and civilians both Soviet and German, Hellbeck reveals the sheer, untold breadth of terror the Nazis inflicted. This eye-opening masterwork is an astonishing new reading both of the Second World War and of how its history has been told.

Publisher Review

[An] arresting and deeply researched new book — Ian Buruma * The New Yorker * There is much to praise in Mr. Hellbeck’s book . . . Hellbeck shares some remarkable human stories and fascinating information — Brendan Simms * The Wall Street Journal * A history of World War II closely focused on its true epicenter: the Russian front . . . An essential contribution to the modern literature of what Russians still call the Great Patriotic War * Kirkus (starred review) * In World Enemy No. 1, Jochen Hellbeck, a pioneering historian of Stalinism, has turned his attention to the German-Soviet genesis of the Holocaust. The book breaks new ground by shifting the focus from some primordial German hatred of Jews to the fierce political competition between Hitler’s fascism and Soviet Communism, which Hitler re-coded as ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ — Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country Hellbeck’s account of the Nazi-Soviet ideological war, and on the level of violence with which it was fought, is based on exhaustive documentation, vividly presented. He demonstrates the savage destruction inflicted by the Germans and their allies under orders from Hitler in his campaign of extermination against “Jewish-Bolshevism”, and contrasts it with the relative restraint displayed by the Soviet leaders and senior officers, with their internationalist outlook, in directing their side of the war — Geoffrey Hosking, author of Russia and the Russians Essential reading. Jochen Hellbeck brilliantly demonstrates how German brutality, recorded and retold by Soviet journalists and historians in the field, shattered Soviet citizens, enraged them, and mobilized them to fight back with bitter intensity. Hellbeck masterfully explains what made World War II on the Eastern front so destructive and why this matters today. A tour de force of historical writing — Paul Hanebrink, author of A Specter Haunting Europe It takes courage, as well as tremendous talent and dedication, to tell this story with so much empathy, eloquence, and insight. World Enemy No. 1 is a magnificent memorial to both the victims and the victors — Yuri Slezkine, author of The Jewish Century In this passionate, original history, Jochen Hellbeck explores how Adolf Hitler fused his twin obsessions against Jews and Communists into a global battle to the death. A vivid, sometimes terrifying account of the Nazi crusade on the Eastern front – a war like no other — Victoria de Grazia, historian, Columbia University Jochen Hellbeck courageously sets out to restore the Soviet role in the defeat of Nazism. Soviet suffering, the colossal loss of more than 26 million Soviet citizens in their four-year war against Hitler, has been largely erased from public memory. Without excusing the pathologies and atrocities of the Stalinist system, Hellbeck unfolds the tragic tale of how a despotic regime saved the democratic world — Ron Suny, author of Stalin: Passage to Revolution