Was Hitler's final intent to kill all the Jews in the world or in Europe only?

Answer 1

This is a question that calls for an opinion. In my opinion, the answer is an unequivocal YES, Hitler intended eventually to murder every Jew in the world. I believe that Hitler and the Nazis certainly intended to control all of Europe, including eventually England and anyplace else they hadn’t already conquered, and they had already demonstrated by their immediate actions in every area they controlled that their intent was to either shoot on the spot or deport every Jew to the death camps in Poland and elsewhere, to either be worked to death, gassed or shot. After 1941 they declared war on us. Had we lost the war, what would have stopped the Nazis from coming after American Jews?

One of the best overall descriptions of what has become known as The Holocaust may be found at . I cite this reference here rather to try to rewrite it. Or go to your public library and search under the subject heading “Holocaust.” There are hundreds of books on the subject. There you will also find Holocaust deniers, who try to argue that The Holocaust never happened; that the photographs, eyewitness testimony, and the careful records kept by the Nazis of the people they murdered are all just part of a Zionist plot to justify the existence of the State of Israel. As one counter to this I would suggest a reading any of many books on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, who was principally responsible for “deporting” millions of people to death camps in Poland and elsewhere was very forthcoming in his testimony. He also was the recording secretary at the infamous Wansee Conference in 1942, where Reinhard Heydrich set forth the official Nazi policy of genocide of the Jews. You can read an excellent biography of Eichmann on line at .

One of the questions that arise in the minds of most thinking people on learning of The Holocaust (the name that has come to symbolize the deliberate, organized and mechanized attempt by the Nazis to exterminate all of the Jews) is, “Why?” It’s a question that has been on my mind most of my life, and arises every time I hear of yet another genocide, but always the mind returns to try to bend around what the modern, intelligent Germans of the middle 20th Century did to the Jews, starting in Germany. Jews had lived in Germany in apparent peace and harmony with their Gentile neighbors for most of 1700 years. There had been the usual occasional persecutions and pogroms, but for the most part, especially after what is called "The Enlightenment" of the late 18th Century, Jews eventually became accepted into almost every aspect of life and labor throughout Europe. So what happened?

An excellent book on the subject is Hitler's Willing Executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Alfred A. Knopf, c1996. This work postulates that average Germans of any educational and social level harbored a deep, visceral distrust and even fear of Jews. It seemed to be rooted in both Catholicism and Lutheranism: basically, priests and pastors of both faiths would periodically stand in their pulpits and rail against the Jews as “Christ killers.” This sort of nonsense was by no means limited to Germany, as witnessed by the collaboration with the Nazis in “getting rid of their Jews” of conquered peoples all over Europe, including even so enlightened a nation as France! This is particularly frightening when your thoughts turn to your own country. Could it happen here? Why not? Anti-Semitism happens here. Or it might not be the Jews the “next time.” Right now we are in what we call a “War on Terrorism,” but who are most of the terrorists? Radical Islamists. It’s only a short step from there to blaming all Muslims for allterrorism. Do not mistake me: terrorists of any stripe are bad and must be stopped! I just think we need to be careful of turning on our good neighbors “just because” they happen to be … anything we are not.

The main point that Goldhagen makes is that to murder millions requires the complicity of thousands, and it’s a good argument. Hitler, together with Himmler and Heydrich and all the rest of the upper level Nazis could not, by themselves, murder 6 million Jews. They had to have help. Lots and lots of help. And they didn’t murder just Jews. There were Gypsies and gays and people with mental disabilities and so on and on, up to as many as 6 million more. Between approximately 1940 and 1945, to willfully murder 12 million people by shooting and gassing required an enormous number of helping hands, says Goldhagen, and the people doing it had to believe that what they were doing was somehow rightand good and necessary. How else could the nation that produced Schiller and Goethe and Beethoven also have produced so many killers? It’s as good an explanation as any I’ve heard as to the “why” of it.

German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller, who eventually offended the Nazis enough to end up in a concentration camp, said this after the war:

• “First they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out.”

In the end, no matter who “they” come for, someone must speak out, or sooner or later, “they” might come for you.