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Historiographical exerciseThe Holocaust

The issue being discussed in these two articles is when Hitler and the Nazi leadership made the decision to implement the systematic mass murder of the Soviet and European Jewish population. When was the plan for the “Final Solution” to the Jewish question formulated?

Christopher Browning argues in his article that the sequence of events and the documentary evidence suggest that Hitler did not harbor a “basic decision” or a “secret plan” for the deportation and extermination of Soviet and European Jewry.

Browning suggests that there were two decisions for implementation, one in mid July 1941 for the mass killing of all Soviet Jews and the second in early October for the “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem in German occupied Europe. He suggests that both these decisions were made in the “euphoria of victory” in the east.

The first decision, to implement the systematic mass murder of the Soviet Jews is supported by logistical, chronological and statisti...

Posted by: Joel Chibota

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