To what extent was Hitler the driving force behind the Final Soloution?
How significant was his absence from the Wanassee Conference?
How significant was his absence from the Wanassee Conference?
Hitler's importace to Final Soloution
- Thread starter goodguy777
- Start date
Yeah like I said in your other thread, Hitler wasn't really a big part in the Final Solution. It's not that he didn't support it, just he didn't come up with it.
Himmler and Goebbels were the real driving force behind it. Hitler would happily see the Jews wiped out (he saw them as a blight), but he was too lazy to come up with anything himself.
Of course, they were all equally mad lunatics. I'm sure no matter what they would have reached the idea of exterminating the Jews eventually.
Himmler and Goebbels were the real driving force behind it. Hitler would happily see the Jews wiped out (he saw them as a blight), but he was too lazy to come up with anything himself.
Of course, they were all equally mad lunatics. I'm sure no matter what they would have reached the idea of exterminating the Jews eventually.
Yeah, the implementation and operation of the Final Solution were mostly Himmler and Goebbels, though they operated with Hitler's enthusiastic blessing and approval.
Garrison
Donor
Hitler was not a details oriented sort, he just handed out grand pronouncements and let others get on with the planning. I do hope the OP is not trying to imply he would either have vetoed the Wannasee plan if he was there or was somehow duped into accepting it.
yourworstnightmare
Banned
He liked the idea, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. He didn't have to be present at the Conference because he trusted his goons to hammer out the fine details of the genocide.
His absence was not significant. Wannsee was a meeting of functionaries organised by Heydrich and Eichmann, who had already been told what the policy was by Himmler. And Himmler had been told to go ahead by Hitler late in 1941. There's evidence that the two had an 'Under Four Eyes' meeting (meaning just Hitler and Himmler, with no-one else present) at that time that left Himmler pale and trembling. That might have been the meeting when Hitler gave the order. It certainly fits Hitler's MO and the timing. Hitler gave the orders in Nazi Germany. He also knew the value in plausible deniability. When scum like David Irving announce that they'd give a reward for an order signed by Hitler authorising the Holocaust they're being disingenuous, as they know that Hitler preferred verbal orders for potentially contentious matters such as this.
Good catch, that's exactly the meeting I meant. I'd forgotten that it was in that book by Gitta Sereny.
Jeez, I thought I answered this earlier. But see no such post.
I simply don't buy what you say at all.
Hitler, or at least his inspiration was THE driving force, the essential ingrediant behind The Final Solution.
You say Hitler was essential, that implies that the Nazis wouldn't have done it if he had died earlier. They would have.
Hitler would have just as quickly agreed to any insane solution his council came up with - if they'd decided to go ahead with the Madagascar Operation, I expect Hitler would have agreed to it. He was a very lazy politician, as far as dictators go.
Still, don't get me wrong - Hitler wanted, ideally, to wipe the Jews out. All the leading Nazis did. I just think that the final solution, especially in the way it was carried out, was more Himmler and Goebbels's doing than it was Hitler's.
Ultimate Paragon
Banned
Hitler was enormously important to the Final Solution. There's no way his underlings could have done it without his encouragement and approval.
sharlin
Banned
Some points about that movie:
- it closely follows the only remaining copy of the protocol, both in terms of content and time. It is the nearest thing to a documentary without a time travel machine;
- note that nobody in that room asks the question "Does the Fuhrer...?" Nobody. All of them know that Heidrich is acting on behalf of Himmler and Himmler is acting on behalf of Hitler. While our dear negationists goodguy777 and SvoHljott might habour doubts about Hitler involvement, the attendees to the conference did not;
- Eichmann systematically removes evidence of the conference (see for example his taking away of the guest book). Everybody in that room knows that what they are doing is illegal, even for the grotesque meaning the word "legal" had come to signify in nazi Germany;
- on a lighter tone, it is the ultimate depiction of a business meeting: you enter with your ideas, you exit with your boss ones. In this case, Heidrich ones
.
I didn't know it was that accurate :s I thought it was 'just' a dramaticisation of the event itself. I would also assume that some of the conversations used in it were the ones said by the people at the meeting. And you're right it is an incredibly buisniss like affair, which makes the whole thing seem more grotesque. To sit there and discuss...that..so pleasantly...(when Mr Heidrich wasn't outright threatning you that is...) its...It baffles the mind.
stirlingdraka
Donor
Some points about that movie:
- it closely follows the only remaining copy of the protocol, both in terms of content and time. It is the nearest thing to a documentary without a time travel machine;
- note that nobody in that room asks the question "Does the Fuhrer...?" Nobody. All of them know that Heidrich is acting on behalf of Himmler and Himmler is acting on behalf of Hitler. While our dear negationists goodguy777 and SvoHljott might habour doubts about Hitler involvement, the attendees to the conference did not;
- Eichmann systematically removes evidence of the conference (see for example his taking away of the guest book). Everybody in that room knows that what they are doing is illegal, even for the grotesque meaning the word "legal" had come to signify in nazi Germany;
- on a lighter tone, it is the ultimate depiction of a business meeting: you enter with your ideas, you exit with your boss ones. In this case, Heidrich ones
I definitely agree with you on Conspiracy.
I'm convinced by Ian Kershaws arguments (chiefly in his two part biography of Hitler, Hubris and Nemesis) that much of the Nazi regime was governed by the ideal of "working towards the Fuhrer" - that is, attempting to anticipate what Hitler wanted, driving further and further radicalisation as the leaders of the various Nazi government departments tried to jockey for power in the regime. This argument has Hitler as decisively responsible for the development of the policies of genocide, while also showing that a number of the features of the Holocaust were developed by minor functionaries in the hope of advancement. Hence, reonsibility without the need for any kind of direct order.
There's a disappointing absence of functionalist arguments here:
1) 1941 pogroms were spontaneous and planned. They involved all arms approaches and hiwis. They involved front line, second line, police battalion, and einsatzgruppen units. There is excellent evidence from material on police battalions and anti-partisan operations in the East and Yugoslavia that jew hunting was effective optional. The participation by men all ages, backgrounds, and military organisations indicates that the resolution of the jewish question by extermination was a common goal in German society by 1941.
2) The camp system was strongly suggested by the haphazard system developed to hold and effectively to kill Soviet POWs through neglect. This group in both official Nazi racial schema, and in popular German racial schema, weren't destined for total elimination. But they were treated murderously on a systematic basis.
3) In 1941 there were some grandiose plans such as starving everyone behind the winter stop-lines. That these plans were beyond the capacity of the German state to implement is beside the point: final solutions were floating around the German bureaucracy in 1941 separate from Hitler.
The particularities of the extermination camp system might have involved some individual genius, but the death by labour or neglect camp system was already well developed. And it seems that the ideas were widespread, popular (as in "from the people"), and didn't precisely match with Hitler's own visions. Outside of secret conferences ordinary day to day bureaucracy in the army, or in the civilian controlled occupied areas anticipated and planned for mass preventable civilian deaths on racial bases as social policy.
yours,
Sam R.
1) 1941 pogroms were spontaneous and planned. They involved all arms approaches and hiwis. They involved front line, second line, police battalion, and einsatzgruppen units. There is excellent evidence from material on police battalions and anti-partisan operations in the East and Yugoslavia that jew hunting was effective optional. The participation by men all ages, backgrounds, and military organisations indicates that the resolution of the jewish question by extermination was a common goal in German society by 1941.
2) The camp system was strongly suggested by the haphazard system developed to hold and effectively to kill Soviet POWs through neglect. This group in both official Nazi racial schema, and in popular German racial schema, weren't destined for total elimination. But they were treated murderously on a systematic basis.
3) In 1941 there were some grandiose plans such as starving everyone behind the winter stop-lines. That these plans were beyond the capacity of the German state to implement is beside the point: final solutions were floating around the German bureaucracy in 1941 separate from Hitler.
The particularities of the extermination camp system might have involved some individual genius, but the death by labour or neglect camp system was already well developed. And it seems that the ideas were widespread, popular (as in "from the people"), and didn't precisely match with Hitler's own visions. Outside of secret conferences ordinary day to day bureaucracy in the army, or in the civilian controlled occupied areas anticipated and planned for mass preventable civilian deaths on racial bases as social policy.
yours,
Sam R.