The Final Solution

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According to Christopher Browning, Hitler's anti-Semitism was evident as early as 1919. In a letter to Adolf Gemlich in 1919, Hitler wrote that the 'Jewish problem' could be solved through a process of systematic deprivation of Jews of their privileges. Hitler wrote that he would classify Jews as foreigners, and concluded by writing: "The final goal, however, must steadfastly remain the removal of the Jews altogether." The German people often took this to mean that the final goal was the removal of Jews from Germany, or alternatively the exclusion of Jews from German economic and political life. Hitler's ultimate goal, as we now know, was to rid the Reich of Jews either through forced emigration or by their murder. When resettlement via emigration failed, he pursued the "Final Solution." (489).

Helen Fein explains that the ultimate destruction of the Jews unfolds in four major evolutionary stages. They were: 1. Forced emigration and resettlement. 2. Deportation to concentration camps. 3. The creation by the Nazis of the "Einsatzgruppen" or killing squads. 4. Creation and operation of the death camps. The first major step leading to the "Final Solution" was the attempt on the part of the Nazis to force Jews to emigrate out of Germany. Hitler wanted to ensure the racial purity of Germany, and he wanted to create what he referred to as living space for German nationals of pure Aryan blood.

The victories of the German armies in the early years of t

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at would be driven from one location to another to murder people who were handicapped, mentally ill, mentally retarded or terminally ill. The Nazis referred to these victims as "lives not worthy to live." They were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning while locked in the back of trucks. In 1941, the SS began using these mobile gassing vans to kill Jews in occupied territories. Beginning in December of 1941, the Nazi's used stationary gas vans for the killing of Jews. In a perverse twist, the Nazi's found that it was more efficient to bring the people to be murdered to the vans than it was to bring the vans to the victims. Soon, death camps with fixed gas chambers and later ovens for the incineration of the dead were completed at a number of concentration camps including: Kulmhof, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, Stutthof, Ravensbruck, and Dachau (391). The extermination of at least six million Jews, Poles, gypsies and other people considered undesirable by Hitler's regime during what is now called the Nazi Holocaust was the product of this barbarism. Historians generally believe the 'Final Solution' unfolded in steps. First, the Einsatzgruppen (special task forc
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Approximate Word count = 1412
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

The Final Solution

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