The Path to Genocide Essays on Launching the Final Solution [Hardcover]

An authoritative and compelling account of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy between 1939 and 1942.The Nazi Holocaust haunts the modern imagination as one of the most compelling examples of the human capacity for organized atrocity. This authoritative account of Nazi Jewish policy seeks to determine what actually happened between the outbreak of war and the emergence of the Final Solution.The Nazi Holocaust haunts the modern imagination as one of the most compelling examples of the human capacity for organized atrocity. This authoritative account of Nazi Jewish policy seeks to determine what actually happened between the outbreak of war and the emergence of the Final Solution.The Path to Genocide studies three aspects of the events leading up to the Final Solution in Nazi Germany. First, Nazi's solutions to their self-imposed Jewish problem before resorting to mass-murder are examined, specifically ghettoization and early resettlement plans to expel Jews to Eastern Poland or the island of Madagascar. Second, the responsibility of shaping Nazi Jewish policy is shown to extend to the lower and middle echelon of government, through accommodation and conformity of a wide variety of perpetrators, including bureaucrats, doctors and policemen. Finally the role of Adolf Hitler in the decisionmaking process is examined, with a historiographical analysis of other accounts of his role. Browning argues that while Hitler did not operate according to a premeditated plan or blueprint, he did make the key decisions. This volume of essays provides perspectives on German Jewish policy both from the bottom of the government apparatus and from the top.Preface; Part I. The Prelude to Genocide: 1. Nazi resettlement policy and the search for a solution to the Jewish question, 19391941; 2. Nazi ghettoization policy in Poland, 193941; Part II. Conflicting Explanations: 3. German technocrats, Jewish labor, and the Final Solution: a reply to G?tz Aly and Susanne Heim; 4. The holocaul“.