Wolf Gruner Publishes New Books on the German Reich and Indigenous People of Bolivia

Wolf Gruner, Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, has published two new books about discriminatory policies against two distinct groups: the Jews in the annexed territories of the Third Reich and the indigenous people of Bolivia in the 19th century.

In The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution in the Annexed Territories 1935-1945 (Berghahn Books), Gruner and co-editor Jörg Osterloh analyze the evolving anti-Jewish policies in the annexed territories and their impact on the Jewish population, as well as the attitudes and actions of non-Jews, Germans, and indigenous populations. The volume is organized by location, with chapters by renowned scholars on Austria, Sudetenland, Danzig-West Prussia, Luxembourg and more. The book demonstrates that diverse anti-Jewish policies developed in the different territories, which in turn affected practices in other regions and even influenced Berlin’s decisions.

Gruner also wrote Parias de la Patria: El mito de la liberación de los indígenas en la República de Bolivia, 1825-1890, published in Spanish by Edition Plural, Bolivia. The book discusses the discrimination against the indigenous majority of Bolivia following Bolivia’s independence. Topics covered include indigenous rights to citizenship, education and property ownership; military service; tax reforms; and the indigenous fight for postcolonial emancipation.

The Greater German Reich and the Jews is available on Amazon. Parias de la Patria will be published later this month.

Gruner holds the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and is a Professor of history at the University of Southern California. He is the author of eight books on the Holocaust, including Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Nazi Racial Aims (2006). He is the founding director of the Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the USC Shoah Foundation.