AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

WEEK 5 RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT

Brandon Smith

Hist 112

04 April 2009
 Why did Adolf Hitler develop the policy that became known as the Final Solution?

To this day the exact reasoning for why Hitler developed the Final Solution is not fully known.

There are many theories and lots of events recorded in Hitler’s life that can be used to

hypothesize why.

When Hitler was young before his rise to power “he acquired his first education in

politics by studying the demagogic techniques of the popular Christian-social Mayor, Karl

Lueger, and picked up the stereotyped, obsessive anti-Semitism with its brutal, violent sexual

connotations and concern with the "purity of blood" that remained with him to the end of his

career”.1 From this young age he was already learning to hate and distain all Jews. He was also

influenced by racial theorists like the monk, Lanz von Liebenfels, and the Austrian Pan-German

leader, Georg von Schoenerer, the young Hitler learned to believe that Jews were the symbol and

cause of all that is bad in the world from corruption and destruction in culture, politics, and the

economy. The press, prostitution, syphilis, capitalism, Marxism, democracy and pacifism were

all things that "the Jew" used and exploited in there conspiracy to undermine the German nation

and the purity of the Aryan race. He wanted to eradicate all Jews from Europe along with other

races he believed to be sub-human, including Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the mentally ill, and

the disabled. As time went by and Hitler grew older he became more obsessed by these thoughts

and beliefs. He attempted for emigration. “In 1938, the Nazis defended the Jewish Policy by

threatening and taking away some privileges hoping for them to leave. Some countries did not

accept them, sending almost all of them back to Germany.”2 I believe this failure to be one of the

-----------------------------------------
1
Adolf Hitler (Jewish Virtual Library)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html (ACCESSED 04 April 2009).
2
Hitler’s Final Solution http://library.thinkquest.org/trio/TTQ03068/finalsolution.htm (ACCESSED
35
04 April 2009).

leading factors in Hitler’s eventual decision that all Jews must be eliminated. At the end of

January 1939 Hitler had prophesied that "if the international financial Jewry within and outside

Europe should succeed once more in dragging the nations into a war, the result will be, not the

Bolshevization of the world and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish

race in Europe."1 This statement appears to be proof that Hitler was already considering the Final

Solution as an option. The development of the war into a World War helped to fuel Hitler’s

hatred of the Jews. He believed that there was now an international Jew conspiracy that

supposedly stood behind the British-American-Soviet alliance. What appeared to be one of the

final straws for Hitler was the refusal of Brittan to accept Germany’s right of complete control

over the European continent. He believed that this too was Jewish influence.

Another theory as to why Hitler chose the Final Solution involves a spiritual believe that

the Nazis were to bring and Armageddon, the end of the struggle between the Arians and the

Jews. That this would be the final battle and lead them to heaven. This can be seen in “the Nazi

use of the terms Endkampf (Final Battle), Endsieg (Final Victory) and the conception of the

Third Reich as the Endreich (Final Empire), the empire of millennial perfection that would come

into being if, and only if, the eschatological struggle between Aryans and Jews reached a

definitive conclusion.”3

I came across another very interesting theory. It has some scientific proof to it and may

explain his delusions and detachment from reality (Like the above mentioned theory). “A brief

encounter with a Jewish prostitute may have led to Hitler's genocidal Holocaust, claim
-----------------------------------------
3
David Redles, Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation (New York:
New York University Press, 2005), 160

psychiatrists.”4 The theory states that he contracted syphilis from a Jewish prostitute; it would

explain why he targeted them. The disease also progressively leads to madness, delusions, and

detachment from reality in its later stages. Dr Bassem Habeeb said that Hitler’s doctor made

entries in his personal diary that speculated he may have had syphilis. Dr Habeeb also said "If

Hitler's life is looked at through the lens of a syphilis diagnosis, one clue leads to another until a

pattern of infection and progressive infection emerges, a disease that may have defined him from

youth as an outsider and that progressively ravaged his body and mind."3 Hitler reportedly had

slept with a Jewish prostitute in Vienna in 1908. He wrote 13 pages about the disease in his book

Mein Kampf. One quote from the book reads “combating syphilis - the Jewish disease - should

be the task of the entire German nation”, the health of the nation will be regained only by

How did he pursue his plans throughout occupied Europe? Hitler used a few different

methods before he arrived at the Final Solution. One of the first was in 1933. “After securing full

legislative power through the Enabling Act in March 1933 the Nazis acted on their pledge to

remove Jews from the public life.”5 The Civil Service Law of 7 April 1933 stated that all people

of non-Aryan descent could not be publicly employed.5 Non-Aryan was defined as people with

one or more Jewish parents or grandparents. Jews could not even own farmland or livestock. A

few years later 2 Nuremberg laws were passed that reduced Jews to the status of aliens without

political rights and unable to call themselves Germans and prohibiting marriage and sexual

-----------------------------------------
4
Jenny Hope, Did Hitler Unleash the Holocaust Because a Jewish Prostitute Gave Him Syphilis? (Mail
Online, 20 June 2007) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-463391/Did-Hitler-unleash-Holocaust-
Jewish-prostitute-gave-syphilis.html (ACCESSED 04 April 2009).
5
Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies (London: New York
Routledge, 2002), 145-150

relations between Jews and ethnic Germans. Because of this most people broke all ties to any

Jews. Many for fear of what would happen to them. In1937 Jews were no longer able to earn

degrees at any German universities. Jews were not allowed to give their children German

sounding names and Aryans could not use Jewish sounding names. The first major turning point

towards the Final Solution was the Reichskristallnacht pogrom in 1938.5 The Nazis removed the

last legal rights the Jews had and legalized physical violence against Jews. This was a sign of

things to come. During all this there were constant forced deportations. One noteworthy

deportation attempt involved Poland. The Polish government knew that Germany would attempt

to return some 17,000 Polish-Jews. The Polish Government decided that all there polish

passports would be revoked on 31 Oct 1938. Upon hearing this news the German government

attempted to deport all the Polish Jews on 29 Oct. The polish government would not accept them

and in turn retaliated with repressive measures against Germans living in Poland. In response the

German government immediately stopped the deportation process. But this left the 17,000+ Jews

homeless and stateless stuck in the middle with nowhere to go. Nazis propaganda involving the

assassination of a secretary at the German in Paris falsely made out to be proof of an

“International Jewry” attack, led to a massive organization of anti-Jewish parties. In one night 35

Jews were killed and many more injured. More than 7,000 Jewish shops, 170 synagogues, and

many homes were plundered, burned, and vandalized.5 The police were told not to intervene.

They were only to protect non-Jewish assets. Thousands of Jews were taken in to what was

called “protective custody” to concentration camps. As a result of this a new 4 year plan was
developed to resolve the Jewish question once and for all, to entirely eliminate Jews from the

economy as rapidly as

-----------------------------------------
5
Stackelberg, Hitler's Germany pp. 151-155

possible, so that the demonstrations that destroy property would no longer be necessary. This led

to mass forced emigration. The Nazis intent was for the pressure of all these laws to make the

Jews leave on there own accord. But at this point it was no longer there choice. Interestingly at

this time forced emigration was chosen because violence would bring a bad image and unwanted

western charges of human rights abuse. But most countries made it very hard to emigrate and

some would not take any Jews at all. Part of this being due to the great depression and the effect

it would have on the government’s economy supporting all the jobless people. Ultimately this all

failed to achieve what Hitler set out to do. Even the 80,000 Jews that made it out of Germany to

neighboring countries soon fell under German control again after the start of the war. All of this

and many other factors including Hitler’s delusional mind lead to the Holocaust as the Final

Solution.

What could the Allied nations have done to prevent the Holocaust, or to stop it once

it began? There are many actions that could have and should have been taken. What was

happening was known for years. Initially before World War II broke out all that Hitler and the

Nazis were doing was published in public papers. After the War started it was harder to get

information. But some time in 1942 Jan Karski, an emissary of the Polish underground, held a

secret meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and told the story of what was happening

honoring a promise he had made early.6 Mr. Karski was approached by 2 Jews who had managed

temporally to get out of the Warsaw ghetto. They wanted him to come to the Warsaw ghetto and
see for himself what was happening. He agreed and saw that Jews were being rounded up and

shipped off by the train full. He promised his two Jewish friends that he would pass on there

story to all he could. Armed with this knowledge and what they already must have known from

other military sources there should have been more immediate action. If the United States and

-----------------------------------------
6
Michael Kaufman, Jan Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust (The New York Times, 14
July 2000) http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/karski.html (ACCESSED 04 April 2009).

other Allied Nations had relaxed stringent entry requirements or gave temporary admission of

refugees countless lives could have been saved. “Tens of thousands of Jews sought to enter the

United States, but they were barred from doing so by the stringent American immigration policy.

Even the relatively small quotas of visas which existed were often not filled, although the

number of applicants was usually many times the number of available places.”7 Constant

warnings to Germany and local populations all over Europe that those helping or aiding in the

annihilation of Jews would be held strictly accountable could have made people less willing to

participate. There may have been more people willing to fight back, or it could have caused a

collapse of the entire plan. The bombing of the Auschwitz death camp or the rail ways leading

there would have had a significant effect. Many allied bombers were in the area bombing other

war targets. This would have greatly hinder there effort and ability to continue there actions.

Eventually on January 1944 the War Refugee Board (WRB) was formed by President Roosevelt

after Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. gave him a document with decisive new

evidence of State Department inaction that Roosevelt knew would be politically explosive if it

became public.8 If The WRB or something similar had been started before World War II had

began, when Hitler was still only using forced emigration, which was made public on a daily

basis. There is the possibility that the Holocaust could have been prevented all together.
-----------------------------------------
7
36 Questions About the Holocaust (The Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1997)
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394663#19 (ACCESSED 04 April 2009).
8
War Refugee Board (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/709871/War-Refugee-Board (ACCESSED 04 April 2009).
BIBLIOGRAPHY

36 Questions About the Holocaust. (The Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1997).

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394663#19 (ACCESSED

April 04, 2009).

Adolf Hitler. (Jewish Virtual Library)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html (ACCESSED April

04, 2009).

Hitler’s Final Solution. http://library.thinkquest.org/trio/TTQ03068/finalsolution.htm

(ACCESSED April 04, 2009).

Hope Jenny. Did Hitler Unleash the Holocaust Because a Jewish Prostitute Gave Him Syphilis?.

(Mail Online, June 20, 2007). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-463391/Did-

Hitler-unleash-Holocaust-Jewish-prostitute-gave-syphilis.html (ACCESSED April 04,

2009).

Michael Kaufman. Jan Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust. (The New York

Times, July 14, 2000). http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/karski.html (ACCESSED

April 04, 2009).

Redles David. Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation. (New

York: New York University Press, 2005).

Stackelberg Roderick. Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies. (London: New York

Routledge, 2002).

War Refugee Board. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009).

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/709871/War-Refugee-Board (ACCESSED

April 04, 2009).