Werner Best was the leading ideologist and organizer of the Gestapo. By following the life path of this man throughout almost the entire 20th century and repeatedly questioning the typical characteristics of intellectual Nazi activists, Ulrich Herbert has created a groundbreaking work about the generation of perpetrators that is now considered a classic of contemporary history. Twenty years after its initial publication, it is being released in a new edition with an expanded and updated introduction. Best emerged from the völkisch student movement of the 1920s, was friends with Ernst Jünger, and served as the deputy to Reinhard Heydrich from 1933 to 1940. During the war, Werner Best held key positions for the Nazi regime in France and Denmark. After 1945, the "theoretician of extermination," who was also adept in its practice, made a career in the private sector in the Federal Republic.