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This monograph presents a self contained mathematical treatment of the initial value problem for shock wave solutions of the Einstein equations in General Relativity. The first two chapters provide background for the introduction of a locally intertial Glimm Scheme, a non-dissipative numerical scheme for approximating shock wave solutions of the Einstein equations in spherically symmetric spacetimes. What follows is a careful analysis of this scheme providing a proof of the existence of (shock wave) solutions of the spherically symmetric Einstein equations for a perfect fluid, starting from initial density and velocity profiles that are only locally of bounded total variation.