This is the subtitle of "Architects of Annihilation" by Goetz Aly and Susanne Heim.
p 294
"Our study has shown that the modern praxis-oriented social sciences and the reception of their findings in the seats of political power played a significant part in the decisions that led to systematic mass murder.
If the links between Auschwitz and visionary German projects of the time for a modernized and pacified Europe are denied or ignored, then Germany's crimes appear as a descent into barbarism and a break with Western civilization - rather than a potentiality inherent within it.
Such an interpretation fails to engage with the larger truth, and makes the German annihilation policy of those years appear the product of a completely atypical historical situation, without context or explanation."
"Architects of Annihilation" by Goetz Aly and Susanne Heim. Phoenix pb 2003, London ISBN 1 84212 670 9 Weidenfeld and Nicolson hb 2002 London, translation by Allan Blunden First published 1991 Germany by Hoffman and Campe as "Vordenker der Vernichtung"
