"There is no single phenomenon in our time so important for us to understand as the one which identified itself in Germany during the 1920's, 30's and 40's as National Socialism. By the time this movement was swept from the stage it had destroyed the lives of at least thirty million and perhaps as many as forty million people. . . . The realization that some men will construct a factory in which to kill other men raises the gravest questions about man himself. We have entered an age which we cannot avoid labeling ‘After Auschwitz.' If we are to begin to understand ourselves we must somehow come to to grips with the reality of Auschwitz. The study which follows is an attempt to come to grips with a part of that reality. . . . an examination of the period which immediately precedes Auschwitz, the period from 1933, when Hitler came to power, until late 1938 and early 1939, when the machinery which eventually administered a Final Solution was established."--From the introduction