Final Solution

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Main. For the Michael Chabon novel see The Final Solution Template:The Holocaust Image:Heydrich-Endlosung.jpg

The Final Solution of the Jewish Question (German Endlösung der Judenfrage) refers to the German Nazis' plan to engage in systematic genocide against the European Jewish population during World War II. The term was coined by Adolf Eichmann, a top Nazi official who supervised the genocidal campaign and was later judged in Jerusalem in 1961. The execution of the Final Solution resulted in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust.

Mass killings of over one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population that the extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. This decision to systematically kill the Jews of Europe was made by the time of, or at the Wannsee conference, which took place in Berlin, in the Wannsee Villa on January 20, 1942. During the conference there was a discussion held by a group of Nazi officials to decide on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The records and minutes of this meeting were found intact by the Allies at the end of the war and served as valuable evidence during the Nuremberg Trials. By spring of 1942, Operation Reinhard began the systematic extermination of the Jews, although hundreds of thousands had already been killed by death squads and in mass pogroms.

There is still considerable debate among historians about when, exactly, the decision to eradicate the Jewish population of Europe was made by the Nazi leadership. The consensus is that the outlines of the Final Solution arose gradually throughout the summer and fall of 1941. Prominent Holocaust historian Christopher Browning has stated that the decision to exterminate the Jews was actually two decisions, one in July of 1941 to kill the Jews of Russia (mass killings by the Einsatzgruppen had already begun by the summer of 1941), the second in October of 1941 to exterminate the remaining Jews of Europe. There is ample evidence for this view, for example in July 31, 1941, under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

Christian Gerlach has argued for a different timeframe suggesting that the decision was made by Hitler on December 12 1941, when he addressed a meeting of the Nazi Party (the Reichsleiter) and of regional party leaders (the Gauleiter). Joseph Goebbels recorded in his notes the following, "Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to clear the table. He warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world war has come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary consequence. We cannot be sentimental about it. It is not for us to feel sympathy for the Jews. We should have sympathy rather with our own German people. If the German people have to sacrifice 160,000 victims in yet another campaign in the east, then those responsible for this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives." In his diary entry of 13 December 1941, the day after Hitler’s private speech, Joseph Goebbels wrote:"In respect of the Jewish question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. The world war is here, the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary result.”

After this decision, plans were made to put the Final Solution into effect. For example, on December 16, at a meeting of the officials of the General Government, Hans Frank referred to Hitler's speech as he described the coming annihilation of the Jews:

As for the Jews, well, I can tell you quite frankly that one way or another we have to put an end to them. The Führer once put it this way: if the combined forces of Judaism should again succeed in unleashing a world war, that would mean the end of the Jews in Europe. .... I urge you: Stand together with me ... on this idea at least: Save your sympathy for the German people alone. Don't waste it on anyone else in the world, . . . I would therefore be guided by the basic expectation that they are going to disappear. They have to be gotten rid of. At present I am involved in discussions aimed at having them moved away to the east. In January there is going to be an important meeting in Berlin to discuss this question. I am going to send State Secretary Dr. Buhler to this meeting. It is scheduled to take place in the offices of the RSHA in the presence of Obergruppenführer Heydrich. Whatever its outcome, a great Jewish emigration will commence. But what is going to happen to these Jews? Do you imagine there will be settlement villages for them in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: Why are you making all this trouble for us? There is nothing we can do with them here in the Ostland or in the Reich Commissariat. Liquidate them yourselves! .... Here are 3.5 million Jews that we can't shoot, we can't poison. But there are some things we can do, and one way or another these measures will successfully lead to a liquidation. They are related to the measures under discussion with the Reich.... Where and how this will all take place will be a matter for offices that we will have to establish and operate here. I will report to you on their operation at the appropriate time.

By 1 November 1941 the first extermination camps were being built: first Belzec, then Sobibor and finally Treblinka. The mass execution of Jews began in early 1942.

[edit]

Cultural references

See The Holocaust in art and literature

[edit]

References

Browning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution, William Heinemann, London, 2004.
Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, University of California Press, Berkley, 1984.
Christian Gerlach. The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler's decision in principle to exterminate all European Jews, The Journal of Modern History. Chicago: Dec 1998.Vol.70, Iss. 4; pg. 759, 54 pgs
Longerich, Peter. The Unwritten Order – Hitler's Role in The Final Solution, Tempus Publishing Limited, Stroud, 2003.

[edit]