Literature highlighting the horrors of the Holocaust has concentrated on the incarceration of Jews and others deemed hostile to Hitler's Reich in ghettoes and their fate in the death camps. Little coverage has been given to the role played by the Deutche Reichsbahn (German National Railway). In fact, the success of the 'Final Solution' was dependent on the efficient utilization of the vast train network of Germany and the Nazi occupied territories. Without this it would have been impossible for Hitler's henchmen to transport their victims in sufficient number to the extermination camps such as Auschwitz. While conditions on the trains were invariably inhuman, many Jews were forced to fund their own deportations through deposits paid to the SS towards 'The resettlement to work in the East' programme. Although these 'death trains' competed for valuable track space with Nazi war effort requirement, the importance of the extermination programme perversely prevailed. The conclusion of this well researched and highly illustrated book is that without the Reichsbahn, the industrial murder of millions of Jews, Roma and other 'undesirables' would not have been possible on the scale that was so tragically achieved. AUTHOR: Ian Baxter is a much-published author and photographic collector whose books draw an increasing following. Among his many previous titles in the Images of War Series are Hitler's Boy Soldiers, Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants, The Ghettos of Nazi Occupied Poland, German Army on the Eastern Front - The Advance, German Army on the Eastern Front - The Retreat, The Crushing of Army Group (North) and the SS Waffen Division series including SS Leibstandarte Division, SS Totenkopf Division At War, Waffen SS of the Baltic States, Waffen SS at Arnhem, Waffen SS in the Ardennes and German Self-Propelled Artillery. He lives near Chelmsford, Essex. 300 b/w illustrations
