Definition of Final Solution (Genocide)

For the Nazis, the Jews represented a "problem" that had to be "solved", and although they faced the "problem" in various ways, they finally opted for the physical elimination (murder) of the individuals identified as Jews.

The term "final solution" defines and identifies all measures taken by the Nazi regime to physically eliminate the Jews.

It must be understood that anti-Semitism (understood as hatred towards everything Jewish or supposedly Jewish) was nothing new in interwar Europe, and that, throughout history, no country had been free from specific outbreaks of strong violence anti-Semitic, and of a weather continued hostility to those who practiced the Jewish religion, or were genetic descendants of those who practiced it.

The fact of belonging to a minority (be it a Jew, a Mason, a gypsy, or of any ethnic group or thought “Different” from the majority) has been from time immemorial the first step to be seen as an “enemy of the state” that, in this way and by winning an internal enemy, it allowed politicians and nobles in power to distract citizens from the problems that they (and not minorities) provoked.

The Nazis only took over the previously existing anti-Semitism in German society (as well as the Austrian from 1938, and that of all the countries that were occupying from 1939), empowering it.

Among other things, they blamed the Jews for the previous war (World War I; and later, also of the Second, already in full conflict), of the world crisis that followed, of being specifically the culprits of the German defeat in the First (the famous “punyalada from the back”).

They were also accused of undermining the foundations of German society (the Nazis understood that there was a "Germanity" to avoid being contaminated with non-Aryan influences) and to have a secret plan to take over the world. For the latter they were based on the book “The protocols of the wise men of Zion”, Which is a forgery but has been used regularly on alleged anti-Semites.

The first anti-Jewish measures of Nazism sought their marginalization and expulsion from Germany (and, later, from the Reich and occupied territories).

However, as the war progressed and the Axis troops conquered more territories, the number of Jews (or considered as such by the Nazis) also grew under their control. administration.

If they were initially concentrated in camps and deported mainly to the territories of the Eastern Europe (starting with Poland), the virulence of the treatment of Jews soon increase.

As a result, in the invasion of the USSR in 1941, troops on the ground were accompanied by Einsatzgruppen, SS platoons whose mission was to murder as many Jews as possible, began to operate with various methods, such as mass shootings or the use of quicklime in large pits.

However, the diversity of means and criteria made the Nazi hierarchs doubt the results, so they decided to plan meticulously the mass murder of all the Jews of Europe.

The Wannsee conference, held in January 1942, is technically the starting point of what is known as the "final solution."

At that conference, held in a house that had been looted from a Jewish businessman before the war (currently a museum and center interpretation of the events that occurred there), senior Nazi officials decided the forms, since the purpose was already known: the extermination.

Among these Nazi chieftains were:

• Reinhard heydrich, known as "the butcher of Prague", who would be killed six months later by a command of the Czech resistance. Representing the services of safety (SD). He was, in fact, the intellectual perpetrator of the plan.
• Adolf eichmann, of the Gestapo. His name would rise to fame for his fictional kidnapping in Argentina by Mossad agents and the subsequent trial of him in Israel, being the highest Nazi hierarch judged by the authorities of that country.
• Rudolf lange, of the SD
• Alfred Meyer, representative of Reich for the occupied territories
• Wilhelm Stuckart, co-author of the Nuremberg Racial Laws.
• Martin Luther, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger representing the Chancellery of the Reich and, therefore, of Adolf Hitler himself.
• Otto Hofmann, of the Office of Race and Colonization.

The result of the conference was Himmler's total control of the SS over the entire process of executing the Jews, although they had been captured by other branches of Reich security, whose cooperation was assured in the meeting.

From this moment, the hunting and capture of the Jews for their subsequent murder, became an obsession of the Nazis, which lasted until the last death throes of the war.

Some historians argue that this was part of the final defeat of the Axis in Europe, since men were assigned, resources and efforts that, on the other hand, could have gone to the combat fronts.

What should be a "final solution" for some, became the Holocaust or the Shoah for the survivors.

In shame for this crime to scale industrial, and its subsequent punishment are the Nuremberg trials and also a good part of the reasons for the birth of the state of Israel.

Photos: Fotolia - Nito / Sergii Figurnyi

Issues in Final Solution (Genocide)