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|title=The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust

|sort=Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust

|buy=No

|borrow=Maybe

|pages=480

|publisher=HarperPerennial

|date=November 2006

|isbn=0007148135

}}

Heinrich Himmler is a name that makes one shudder. As chief of the SS, he was one of the most influential figures in the Third Reich and the chief architect of the Final Solution. He didn't have much use for Christianity. Himmler was interested in finding scholarly proof of Aryan superiority. To that end, he created the Ahnenerbe, an academic think-tank instructed to follow every lead that could hope to create a scientific basis for the political opinions the Nazis held about race. The Ahnenerbe was given palatial offices, laboratories and a seemingly bottomless purse. It employed not only Germany's best scholars, but a rag tag bunch of fantasists, adventurers and opportunists.

The Master Plan is an admirable book, despite my criticisms. I'm all for accessible historical texts and this is a great example. It's complicated but readable, academic but interesting, and we really should never forget the crimes of the Third Reich. I recommend it to WWII buffs who want to add reliable detail to their knowledge, or to those who are very new to the subject. For the rest of us though, I fear it has little of real use to add to the huge volume of work on these detestable people that has already been published.

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