The statement below contains the “logic”—the fundamental idea—that generated the Final Solution:
| Hitler (Mein Kampf, 1924): “If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.” |
Hitler was saying, essentially, that as German soldiers had died in the First World War, so Jews should have died as well.
Specifically, Hitler said that If German soldiers had been “held under” poison gas, so Jews should have been “held under” poison gas.
The logic of genocide followed the logic of warfare. Warfare is the occasion in which soldiers perform the “work” of sacrificing their lives. Why should Jews be exempt from this obligation? As German soldiers died (at the behest of the German government), so Jews would be required to do the same. |