The idea of an “integrated history” of the Holocaust is primarily associated with Saul Friedländer. For Friedländer, integration means bringing the Jewish dimension of the Holocaust into the history of the Nazi epoch. This is to be achieved by ensuring that the historian’s focus is not only on the Germans but also on institutions of all sorts across Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as on Jewish responses both under Nazi occupation and outside it. This “simultaneous representation of the events – at all levels and in all different places – enhances the perception of the magnitude, the complexity, and the interrelatedness of the multiple components of this history,” as he writes. This chapter considers the extent to which Friedländer realized his goal, and asks what other kinds of integration – such as placing the genocide of the Jews in a single analytical framework alongside the Nazis’ “other victims”; or placing the Holocaust in the context of genocide studies – might help us to understand about the Holocaust as a historical event or about its significance for the contemporary world. While most historians are in favor of integration, what that means in practice remains contested.

The Introduction opens by establishing a central point of the book: that German military chaplains were physically present at sites of mass killing of Jews and other victims of the Holocaust and World War II. The 1941 massacre of Jewish children at Bila Tserkva in occupied Ukraine is described and analyzed using German and Jewish sources. The theme of power and legitimation, which runs throughout the entire book, is presented. Building from the killing at Bila Tserkva and the role of chaplains there, the chapter shows how the Wehrmacht chaplains had considerable power. They served to legitimize Hitler’s regime and its genocidal war and played a key role in creating a reassuring narrative of events for German soldiers, their families, and the chaplains themselves. Other themes introduced include systems and dynamics (the importance of the chaplaincy as an institution), the forces of war and the confusion it generates, and habit: chaplains’ actions and decisions even before the war set patterns that became entrenched. The sources and methodology are explained, with emphasis on integrating Jewish sources.