The Origins Of The Final Solution
When my father passed away recently he left behind an interesting collection of historic, religious and cultural literature.
One of the books I picked up, and found difficult to put down was "The Origins of the Final Solution - The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942" by Christopher Browning and published by the University of Nebraska Press for Yad Vashem.
The book starts with describing the transition from religious based anti-Semitism, which had existed for thousands of years, to racial and political anti-Semitism.
How hating and mistreating Germany's assimilated Jews, who were contributing commercially and culturally to their host country's society, could develop into denigration, forced emigration and expulsion.
The book clearly details projects like the Madagascar Plan and transfer to Eastern Europe.
The conquest of Western Poland enabled Himmler to implement his policies of racial transfer, to expel Jews and Poles and bring in ethnic Germans from the Baltic States in the North to the Black Sea in the South, in agreement with the Soviets who had invaded Poland from the East.
The policy of ghettoization of the Jews was not predetermined prior to the invasion, it arose more out a desire to vacate Jewish properties in order to house the invading Germans from the Reich and repatriated ethnic Germans from elsewhere.
The ghettos were to be temporary holding camps until other destinations could be prepared.
Then Germans regulated the inflow of resources to the ghettos in exchange for whatever tradable assets the Jews owned.
The governors of the ghettos had two different approaches to their management.
The first was to harness the Jewish productivity towards to the war effort while letting the weaker ones atrophy.
The second was to starve the inhabitants until deportation or death.
When the Germans invaded, it was the non-Jewish polish leadership and intelligentsia who were the main target of German genocidal activity, the Jews were second on their list.
It was at this juncture that the army could have protested that the murdering went beyond what was acceptable when conquering territories, and Mr Browning concludes that had the marshals and generals remonstrated instead of turning a blind eye perhaps the outcome of the holocaust would have been less severe.
The fantastic victory over the French changed the mood of the soldiers and made any dissent unpatriotic.
The scientific approach to mass murder ironically started in Germany on Germans when they developed gassing vans to murder the mentally ill Germans.
The experience gained was subsequently applied on a much larger scale.
Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Russia in Sumer 1941 increased the numbers of Jews and POWs coming under their control.
It is easy to forget the millions of Soviet POWs who were left to starve to death in primitive camps.
The Einsatzgruppen which went around murdering Jews, communists and partisans were suffering from emotional trauma from shooting so many people and the Nazi leadership saw the need to develop a more sterile and less public mode of murder.
The book shows clearly how the main architects of the holocaust went from experimentation to mass murder, how the bureaucrats actively cooperated in the development and implementation of the Final Solution and how Germany's civilians went from indifference at Kristallnacht's violence and pillaging to apathy about mass murder.
The last chapter is about the infamous Wansee Conference in January 1942 is a must-read.
It details who attended, who spoke and even what Heydrich drank.
A well-researched and written book, which leaves the reader with a deep understanding how it all happened.
My only reservation is that the three maps were insufficient for the scope of the book.
One of the books I picked up, and found difficult to put down was "The Origins of the Final Solution - The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942" by Christopher Browning and published by the University of Nebraska Press for Yad Vashem.
The book starts with describing the transition from religious based anti-Semitism, which had existed for thousands of years, to racial and political anti-Semitism.
How hating and mistreating Germany's assimilated Jews, who were contributing commercially and culturally to their host country's society, could develop into denigration, forced emigration and expulsion.
The book clearly details projects like the Madagascar Plan and transfer to Eastern Europe.
The conquest of Western Poland enabled Himmler to implement his policies of racial transfer, to expel Jews and Poles and bring in ethnic Germans from the Baltic States in the North to the Black Sea in the South, in agreement with the Soviets who had invaded Poland from the East.
The policy of ghettoization of the Jews was not predetermined prior to the invasion, it arose more out a desire to vacate Jewish properties in order to house the invading Germans from the Reich and repatriated ethnic Germans from elsewhere.
The ghettos were to be temporary holding camps until other destinations could be prepared.
Then Germans regulated the inflow of resources to the ghettos in exchange for whatever tradable assets the Jews owned.
The governors of the ghettos had two different approaches to their management.
The first was to harness the Jewish productivity towards to the war effort while letting the weaker ones atrophy.
The second was to starve the inhabitants until deportation or death.
When the Germans invaded, it was the non-Jewish polish leadership and intelligentsia who were the main target of German genocidal activity, the Jews were second on their list.
It was at this juncture that the army could have protested that the murdering went beyond what was acceptable when conquering territories, and Mr Browning concludes that had the marshals and generals remonstrated instead of turning a blind eye perhaps the outcome of the holocaust would have been less severe.
The fantastic victory over the French changed the mood of the soldiers and made any dissent unpatriotic.
The scientific approach to mass murder ironically started in Germany on Germans when they developed gassing vans to murder the mentally ill Germans.
The experience gained was subsequently applied on a much larger scale.
Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Russia in Sumer 1941 increased the numbers of Jews and POWs coming under their control.
It is easy to forget the millions of Soviet POWs who were left to starve to death in primitive camps.
The Einsatzgruppen which went around murdering Jews, communists and partisans were suffering from emotional trauma from shooting so many people and the Nazi leadership saw the need to develop a more sterile and less public mode of murder.
The book shows clearly how the main architects of the holocaust went from experimentation to mass murder, how the bureaucrats actively cooperated in the development and implementation of the Final Solution and how Germany's civilians went from indifference at Kristallnacht's violence and pillaging to apathy about mass murder.
The last chapter is about the infamous Wansee Conference in January 1942 is a must-read.
It details who attended, who spoke and even what Heydrich drank.
A well-researched and written book, which leaves the reader with a deep understanding how it all happened.
My only reservation is that the three maps were insufficient for the scope of the book.
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