Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 234
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4422-2238-0 • Hardback • April 2013 • $65.00 • (£50.00)
978-1-4422-5274-5 • Paperback • June 2016 • $29.00 • (£21.99)
978-1-4422-2239-7 • eBook • April 2013 • $27.50 • (£20.99)
Benjamin Ginsberg is David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His many books include The Fall of the Faculty, Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced, and Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public.
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Problem of Jewish Resistance
Chapter 2: The Soviet Union: The War of the Engineers
Chapter 3: The United States: The Anti-Nazi Coalition
Chapter 4: Jewish Intelligence
Chapter 5: Partisan Warfare
Chapter 6: Aftermath and Afterward: From Tragedy to Farce
Bibliography
Benjamin Ginsberg’s pathbreaking study demolishes the widely held view that Jews failed to resist during the Holocaust. He conclusively demonstrates the immense Jewish contribution, on many fronts, to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Ginsberg uncovers many forms of Jewish anti-Nazi resistance largely overlooked by other scholars. His book analyzes and details European and American Jews’ prominent role in conventional and partisan military efforts, in scientific and engineering breakthroughs critical to the Allied war effort, in undermining Nazi propaganda, and in counteracting isolationism in the West. This work will transform how scholars and the public view Jews and the Holocaust.
— Stephen H. Norwood, University of Oklahoma; author of The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower and Antisemitism and the American Far Left
An exceptionally well-written and cogently argued study showing how Jews resisted Nazism vigorously and effectively. Ginsberg has done a prodigious amount of work in military, political, economic, scientific, intelligence, and cultural sources. The result is a synthesis that makes for fascinating reading, showing how and why Jewish resistance and opposition to the Nazis manifested itself in a number of settings both inside and outside German-occupied territory. A beautifully researched and written analysis of, and an original contribution to, an important subject.
— Donald M. McKale, Clemson University; author of Hitler's Shadow War and Nazis after Hitler
The apparent lack of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust has long been troubling. Johns Hopkins political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg proposes a new way of understanding what actually happened: Jews did resist, not so much in the impossible environs of Nazi-occupied Europe but from elsewhere. Jews took leading roles in Britain’s codebreaking program and America’s nuclear project, eagerly served in the U.S. and Soviet military and designed some of Russia’s best weapons, including the T-34 tank. Ginsberg leaps to some invalid assumptions—the atom bomb almost certainly would not have been dropped on Germany had the Nazis held out a few months longer—but his thesis brings fresh eyes to an old subject.
— Express Milwaukee
Benjamin Ginsberg’s intriguing new book, How the Jews Defeated Hitler, offers a provocative new answer to an old question. In seeking to explain why the Jews failed to resist the Nazis during World War II, he declares that they not only resisted, but also helped bring about the Nazis’ defeat. . . . Readers will be especially impressed to learn about little-known Jewish contributions to the Soviet cause, including their role in inventing the T-34 tank, the La-5 aircraft, and the Katyusha rocket. . . . [R]eaders. . . are sure to be stimulated by his engaging and provocative book.
— Forward
[Benjamin Ginsberg] makes a compelling case for Jewish resistance and gives the lie to those who question otherwise.
— Hadassah Magazine