Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- 1 The Phases 1933–1939: The Initial and the Double Trap
- 2 Western Responses
- 3 A Flashback on the Palestine Question
- 4 1939 to “Barbarossa” – The Foundation of the Multiple Trap
- 5 The “Final Solution” Decision and Its Initial Implementation
- 6 The “Final Solution” in Some Detail and More on Its Justification
- 7 The Zionists' Dilemmas
- 8 Dimensions of the Allied Response to Hitler's “Jewish Politics” and the Deepening of the Trap
- 9 The War Priorities of the Western Allies and Rules of Economic Warfare Related to the Holocaust, 1941–1944
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
5 - The “Final Solution” Decision and Its Initial Implementation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- 1 The Phases 1933–1939: The Initial and the Double Trap
- 2 Western Responses
- 3 A Flashback on the Palestine Question
- 4 1939 to “Barbarossa” – The Foundation of the Multiple Trap
- 5 The “Final Solution” Decision and Its Initial Implementation
- 6 The “Final Solution” in Some Detail and More on Its Justification
- 7 The Zionists' Dilemmas
- 8 Dimensions of the Allied Response to Hitler's “Jewish Politics” and the Deepening of the Trap
- 9 The War Priorities of the Western Allies and Rules of Economic Warfare Related to the Holocaust, 1941–1944
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The decision to kill the Jews could have been made by Hitler regardless of the war and its development. In other words, the decision was to be made, and the war allowed it to be implemented in various stages. Yet there is a problem with this assertion, and this must be seen in the light of the forced emigration policy beforehand, which obviously did not entail the physical annihilation of the deportees. Nor can we prove on the basis of Hitler's moves before late 1940 that he had envisioned a multifront war, which would allow him to implement a decision to kill the Jews wherever he found them. Such a decision was made in October or November 1941, following the initial decision to destroy the Jews in occupied Soviet territory. Before that, various territorial “solutions,” including the Madagascar Plan, were considered within the overall framework of the war as it had developed until then, including dubious American neutrality, British policies and actions, including bombing raids on Germany, and Nazi–Soviet relations. Hence, my argument is that the Final Solution decision was the result of a radicalized German policy toward the Jews in the context of the behavior of third parties toward the Third Reich as it affected Hitler after the “Battle of Britain.” Yet one may ask immediately how Soviet Jews became the first victims of Hitler's wrath against the British and the Americans while Polish Jews were under Germany's control since fall 1939.
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- Information
- Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews , pp. 36 - 43Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004