The “Final Solution” was, in many ways, the perfect name for the systematic extirpation of European Jewry.
The term speaks to the mechanical cruelty of what Chaplin referred to, in “The Great Dictator”, as the “machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts”.
The final solution, in many ways, begins with a man whose name is not as known to history as perhaps it should be. That man was Anton Drexler. He was the cofounder of the German worker’s party that would become the Nazi Party.
Drexler brought a young Corporal named Adolf Hitler into the party after having been impressed by his speaking ability. The party, it will surprise no one, swam in a deep reservoir of anti-Jewish hatred. The reasons why that well was so deep would be best reserved for another article.
It was in 1935, that the Nuremberg laws were enacted, which effectively stripped the Jewish contingent of their civil rights. This, in many ways, laid the groundwork for the Final Solution.
After having risen to power within the party, following a failed coup at a certain infamous Beer Hall, Hitler became the man known to us historically as the Fuhrer in 1938. This, of course, set the stage for the Final Solution to be brought into full force.
The Einsatzgruppen were formed immediately after in 1939. These were mobile killing squads that were created for the specific purpose of following the German army into newly occupied territories, particularly in Eastern Europe, killing Jews as part of the first phase of the final solution. The Final solution at this point, consisted of bullets, but they were horrifyingly effective. It is estimated that 1.5 million Jews in large- and small-scale operations, as a result of the Einsatzgruppen.
Another act in the unfolding horror show of the Final Solution was the proliferation of the horrible labor and death camps that sprouted up around Europe, particularly in Poland.
In all, it is generally estimated that we lost 6 million of our Jewish brothers and sisters during the final solution. Saliently, at the infamous camp of Auschwitz in Poland, there were approximately 1.1 to 1.5 million people killed. Treblinka, also in Poland, saw to the race murder of between 700,000 to 900,000 Jews as well.
The Final Solution, or Shoah, is the most egregious example of the sort of evil that human beings are capable of, at least when they think they can get away with it.
This lesson of history must be endlessly doted and dwelled upon because, as Santayana infamously remarked,”Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”. This is why humanity must hold to the perennial injunction to never forget the Holocaust.
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"The Final Solution: What Was It and How Many Perished?" History on the Net© 2000-2024, Salem Media.
April 27, 2024 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-final-solution-what-was-it-and-how-many-perished>
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