k the Nazi party planned it all along. They were just waiting for the right moment to implement the “Final Solution”. Before they could carry out the murder of a people, they first had to make sure they had total control of their own. The Nazi party needed time to carefully strengthen their hold on Germany’s people. It takes quite a bit of power and planning to convince a country to support genocide. That is not something that just happens; it is a seed planted in one’s head that grows and grows. Before Germany knew it, they were active anti-Semites too.But I do question whether or not Germany really wanted to kill Jews altogether or simply rid their country of them. The Madagascar plan for instance, planned for the deportation of the Polish and German Jews to Madagascar. There were two big problems with the plan: (1) the island was not a conquered German territory, and (2) the sudden influx of Russian Jews from conquered territories. I think that there were several solutions to the Jewish problem before the Nazis settled on murder, but nonetheless there was still the intent to kill.I personally found Raul Hilberg’s argument to be the most intriguing. He argument is both fundamental and intentional. He states the destruction of the Jews were in stages, “sequential steps that were taken at the initiative of countless decision makers in a few flung bureaucratic machine.” (Marrus, 48). Marrus points these stages or steps out, “First came the definition of the Jews, then their expropriation, concentration, deportation, and finally their murder.” (Marrus, 48). These steps follow a logical order and can be traced through events: the Nuremberg laws, Kristalnacht, ghettoization, deportation to the camps, and either gassing or working the Jews to death. It’s all so basic. Hilberg used fundamentalist principles in the intentionalist argument. He refers to the Third Reich ...
