Was The Holocaust a Product Of Long Term Planning or Improvisation under the Impact of Wartime Circumstances?.
The Genocide of over six Jewish million people by the German government during the Second World War is the largest massacre of modern times. Most people consider it to be the result of extensive planning on the part of the Nazi's, some others believes it was not planned, but a reaction to a war that Hitler had not anticipated.
Before looking into either of these arguments, one must look into the Holocaust itself, what was it and how did the Nazi government manage to murder several million people? Why did no one stop them?.
The murder of several million people happened during the Second World War. The discrimination and legislation against the freedom of Jewish people in Germany had been going on for many years, as I will document later on. In 1939 Hitler and Germany successfully invaded Poland, where the approximate Jewish population was 3.5 million, the largest in Europe. In 1940 the first shipment of German Jews were sent to camps set up in occupied Poland. These camps were set up all over occupied Europe, and Jews as well as other minority groups were sent to them. These camps were at the time essentially slave labour groups, where the conditions were poor and people were put to work. It is agreed by most historians that the "Final Solution" was decided upon in 1941, though the exact date is one of the dividing factors in holocaust views. It was the final solution that led to the gas chambers being implemented at camps, most notoriously at Auschwitz, where the largest numbers were killed. Over the course of the war almost six million Jewish people and up to five million others, were killed by the German government, including homosexuals, black people and disabled people, the majority in concentration camps. Hitler and his chief officers killed themselves at the end of the war rather than be brought to trial for their crimes.
