Geoffrey P. Megargee

Geoffrey P. Megargee (born 1959) is an American historian and author who specialises in the World War II military history and the history of the Holocaust. He is the author of several books on history of Nazi Germany.

Education and career

Megargee received his PhD in military history from Ohio State University. As of 2016, he is an applied research scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. He is also the project director and general editor for the seven-volume United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.^[1] Prior to this position Megargee served as research associate at the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century and was a contributor to World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia.^[2]

Military historian of Nazi Germany

Megargee authored several books on the German military operations during World War II, including a 2006 work on Operation Barbarossa, the Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. Titled War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941, the book focuses on the intermingling of military and genocidal aims of Nazi Germany during the invasion. Reviewing the book, historian Stephen G. Fritz of East Tennessee State University notes that Megargee's intention was to remediate a "curious disconnect in the historical literature on the Nazi-Soviet war between the campaign's military and criminal aspects". Fritz commends the author on this intention and that he has written "an excellent synthesis of the first six months of the Nazi- Soviet war that manages to be both concise and yet surprisingly substantive". According to Fritz, the book also focuses on the "recurring characteristic of the German war effort: considerable operational aptitude combined with strategic confusion".^[3]

Megargee is also the author of the 2000 book Inside Hitler's High Command, published by the University Press of Kansas. The books looks at the inner workings of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). Reviewing the work for the Foreign Affairs magazine, professor of strategic studies Eliot A. Cohen describes the book as a "well-executed history that demolishes self-exculpatory accounts" by Wehrmacht generals who subscribe to the " 'if the Führer had only listened to me' " school of historiography". Cohen notes:^[4]

In a clear but scholarly analysis of the German high command, Megargee shows that the German general staff, despite flashes of real brilliance, had deep, long-term flaws in such areas as intelligence, logistics, and strategic planning. (...) His analysis reminds the reader that it is the drudgery of staff work that often wins and loses wars; it is a tribute to the author's abilities that he can make that fact not only clear but highly interesting.

Awards

• 2001 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for Military History for Inside Hitler's High Command (2000)^[5]

Publications

• Megargee, Geoffrey P. (2000). Inside Hitler's High Command. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1015-4. 
• Megargee, Geoffrey P. War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littelefield, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-7425-4481-8; paperback, ISBN 0-7425-4482-6).

Notes

External links

• "Not the Stuff of Legend: The German High Command in World War II" – lecture by Megargee via the official YouTube channel of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center
• Appearances on C-SPAN, via official web site or C-SPAN
• The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 project, via official web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Geoffrey P. Megargee. "Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945" (PDF). The Early National Socialist Concentration Camps. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. VIII (8 / 22) – via direct download.