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 the war
in Poland, the Low Countries, and Czechoslovakia brought the many European Jews under Nazi control. Jews first were deprived of property rights, and soon afterward human rights. Once their property was confiscated, many Jews were forced to relocate into ghettos and concentration camps. Fein adds that following the invasion and defeat of Poland at the beginning of the war, Himmler was appointed to take measures to strengthen German ethnicity in the occupied territories an...