ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that the civil–military rivalry as well as the drastic shortage of German personnel even prompted a temporary recourse to Polish administrative committees for maintaining order. It highlights the recourse to French measures implemented in 1918–1919. The book focuses on the analysis of Nazi occupation practices by Raphael Lemkin, an analysis that led to his invention of the term “genocide.” It argues that a consciousness of a broadly fascist colonialism had developed by 1938 through intense exchanges of ideas between Italian and German publicists, often independently of the diplomatic developments at the top. The book also shows that the practice of Italian colonialism inspired German colonial advocates. It examines the question of colonialism not only through the policies of the Gauleiter but also through the lens of a pro-French Mosellan, whose diary describes the eastern workers in an orientalist perspective.
