The Wannsee Conference

Throughout the course of human history, crimes against humanity have continuously shaped perceptions of civilisation and society. The 20th century was undeniably a pivotal epoch in the development of such atrocities, with the first prosecution for a crime against humanity being the Holocaust. One of the most defining historical atrocities, the Holocaust was the systematic genocide of six million Jews and five million other minority groups enacted by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The responsibility for the conception of the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ is an elusive notion which has been extensively studied and theorised by two schools of thought; the Intentionalists and Functionalists, which both focus on the notion

Studies of the Holocaust have provoked passionate debates. Increasingly, they have become a central topic of concern for historians particularly since the early 1970s, as the Holocaust studies were generally limited. However, one of the most intense debates surrounding the role played by Hitler in the ’Final Solution’. That is, whether and when Hitler took a decision to initiate the extermination process. Of course, this issue has caused incredible controversy and naturally such a contentious topic of debate has radically produced large amounts of new data and literature. Conflicting, an interpretation has caused further disparities between historians over Hitler’s role in the Holocaust. For this

The efforts the Nazi party expended on carrying out their ‘final solution to the Jewish question in Europe’ involved changing the structure of a whole country’s economic, social, and military sectors; a mobilisation completed by many various competing and collating departments and agencies, all of which were expected by their superiors to show initiative in their operations. This mode of command lends plausibility to the theory that the ‘final solution’ of the holocaust was not necessarily a result of a direct command by the Führer (No records of any such order exist) but rather the culmination of the departments of the Nazi state vying for approval from their superiors by following the ideology to its ‘logical conclusion’ with Hitler’s approval. This could be seen to support Berghahn, as it was the confusion and rush to meet growing needs that drove the party to extermination over deportation. It also supports Kershaw, who

The quote, “We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (42), Eliezer was assigned a number in order for the Nazis to call him using that instead of his real name. The Nazi took away their main source of identity. Getting an identity taken away is something that only a few people experience. The line, “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear a yellow star” (11), is describing how the Jew were marked so that they stood out from the rest. The yellow star was a way to mark them as outcasts of the community. Their new identity was to be criminals or people at fault for the problems. The Jews’ identities were changed completely in order to show that they were lesser than the Nazi and their supporters. It’s hard to imagine how that must have felt unless someone experiences that

To start off with, The Final Solution was a process that the Nazis used to exterminate the

(109) The Jews by lose their faith in their god when the Germans hung a little boy, and he was dangling there struggling to die, and a Jew next to Elie said “where is god when this boy is suffering?” Elie said back to the man “God is here, he is hanging from the ropes” ( 90) As a result Elie loses faith in hs god. Inhumanity and cruelty were shown when the Jews were stripped of their identity, hair, jewelry, and shoes. The Germans stripped the Jews of everything because they did not want to have individuality among the Jews in the camps. The Germans gave the Jews numbers that were tattooed on the arms so they could be kept up with. It is almost like in prison how they have numbers so they do not get mixed up or lost track of. Once they had numbers the Jews were told to go to the barracks and they were given striped blue and white uniforms. This was also savage because it was the middle of winter. The Jews wore very little clothing causing some Jews to die from the cold and

At the “Wannsee Conference”, which took place in Berlin, on January 20, 1942 the German regime with its main protagonists Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler planned the ‘final solution of the Jewish question. Even if massacres of about one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution, with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population, extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. The scene where a train of Schindler’s workers was wrongly sent to Auschwitz shows such an extermination camp were the Nazis systematically gassed thousands of Jews. Another example for the organized genocide is the mass cremation after the mass execution during the eviction of the ghetto in Krakow.

The Nazi's did use propaganda in this negative sense but in an underhanded and subversive way. They backed up all their false reports with "scientific studies" and claims of a better human race.

In the pre-war years, the Nazi Party wanted to find a solution to the “Jewish question” – meaning what to do with them (“Final Solution” Learning). On July 31, 1941, Heydrich submitted the “draft of the measures he proposed to undertake ‘to implement the desired final solution of the Jewish Question’” (“SS”). In the fall of 1941, the Nazi soldiers implemented the plan and began to effectuate it by experimental gassings in the Auschwitz extermination camp and then moving forth to surrounding camps (“Final Solution” Learning). Between then and 1945, the top SS soldiers continued to give the orders to torture, mass shoot, gas (especially in constructed extermination camps), enforce murderous labor, and other means (“Holocaust”). The ideas, which were thought of by Himmler, Eichmann, and Heydrich, are what allowed for this brutality to cause such a large scale genocide. Despite the eleven million

Laws passed in 1935 and the "final solution" beginning in 1939. These actions taken by the Germans were evidence of their attempt at willing the unwillable. They were trying to will German national power and regain honor by willing the Jews, which was not a reasonable solution. The thought behind their attempt at willing the unwillable was the illogic of logic, that if they Jews were gone, the Aryan race would flourish. The

The Final Solution is the most controversial topic of German History as its origination is not clean cut, whilst it would be simple to place emphasis on Hitler and his World View for the destruction of all Jewry there are other factors such as WW2 which must be taken into consideration in analysis of the Final Solution. Other factors include the polarised view of a lack of formal mechanisms and coherent policy, both of which were fuelled by an honest desire to pursue the will of the Fuhrer to commit, as described by Layton ‘The darkest deed of the Third Reich.’ Throughout this essay it will be

The 8 Stages of Genocide, (Source B) was a way the Nazi Government marginalized the Jews. In the second stage of genocide, Symbolism, expresses that symbolism is, "Names or symbols that are given to people classified as "different." Jews living in Nazi occupied Europe were made to wear the Star of David," (Source B). In other words, this was one of the laws that the Nazi Government put in place for the Jewish people to be marginalized from everyone else. The Star of David to everyone else that wasn’t a Jewish person was thought to be an easy way for them to target the Jewish Community. In The Dairy of Anne Frank, (Source A), the passage demonstrates the government putting rules on because it presents, "The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews," (Source A). This law was enforced to have the Gestapos gather up Jews and take them away to be killed by gas or other painful ways. This created fear in all of the Jewish people that weren't taken away yet, which made a lot of them go into finding. Both of these sources demonstrate the laws that were put in place to marginalize the Jewish

The Origins of the final solution by Christopher Browning gives a comprehensive review of what led up to the final solution. He belongs to the school of thought of moderate functionalism, that the final solution was led up to, and that policies enacted led up to it, with no premeditation. He argues that the final solution happened because of previous attempts to create a Judenfrei Europe that did not have enough success. It uses multiple types of evidence to prove this thesis. First it talks about Jewish policy in Poland, involving deportation and in turn the resettlement of Volksdeutsche. The problem with this is that it does not have enough success, with deportation rates at a low 40% on average. In addition, many government officials were

The text is noted for its sharp criticism of the tactics used to embody the whole of the Nazi party's crimes in the form of one seemingly meek bureaucrat. However, the text is also the subject of considerable criticism itself for a tone that seems both to minimize the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and to purposively gloss over the truly determinant role played by Eichmann in the implementation of the Final Solution.

German Attitudes Toward the Jews and the Final Solution There are those that claim that Hitler’s conscious personal hatred of the Jews, his unique and central role in the rise of Nazi Germany were fundamental in the development of the anti-Jewish policies that emerged leading to the final solution. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the anti- Jewish feeling in Germany reflected a much stronger, widespread support amongst its people and this essay will examine the role and attitudes of the German people towards the Final Solution. On the 1st of April, 1933, the boycott of Jewish businesses reflected evidence of widespread anti Jewish feelings amongst the lower bureaucracy of the