In Search of the Origins of Nazi Monstrosity does not intend to rewrite the history of the Shoah or, for that matter, any other persecutions that occurred during the Nazi regime. It tries, foremost, to quantify the facts pertaining to the transformation of xenophobic attitudes into systematic annihilation. These facts reveal the relevant role of the Austro-Bavarian culture in the construction and execution of the massacres. A tentative explanation follows trying to illuminate the constellation under which this specific geo-political active participation could have arisen.

Three levels are analyzed: one pertaining to the “material executors,” one to the collaboration by the overall pan-German “civil servants,” and finally and foremost, to the “originators” of the systematic annihilation process. In what could seem an accusatory trial of Austria and Bavaria, our profound admiration for what these people have achieved in other historical circumstances remains unchallenged.