Edward B. Westermann is Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M University—San Antonio, a Commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, and author, most recently, of Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars.
Drunk on Genocide is an essential read, and one that offers considerable insights into the intimate relationship between ritualized intoxication, cults of masculinity, ideological antisemitism, and the mass murders in the bloodlands of the east. * EuropeNow * Westermann uses a wide variety of primary sources ranging from photos to diaries to interviews to understand the behaviors and beliefs of perpetrators. It is a remarkably challenging book to read. But a necessary one. * New Books Network * [Ed Westermann's] work provides an invaluable insight into the mindset and mentality of the everyday executioners of the racial war in the east. * German History * Drawing on several decades of research into Nazi police battalions and comparative genocide, he employs social, anthropological, and gender theories to create a framework that effectively analyzes the relationship between alcohol and mass murder. * Journal of Military History * Drunk on Genocide is a important and terryfing book that tackles a persistent question in the study of the Holocaust and World War II: how was it possible that the Germans killed so many people and behaved so brutally in the Soviet territory they invaded and occupied? * Slavic Review *