Browning Christopher R. - The Origins of the Final Solution

Based on a superb mastery of the archival sources and the secondary literature, Browning leads his readers through the step-by-step radicalization of Nazi policies in the critical months after the outbreak of WWII.... This book is sure to become the standard work on the emergence of the Holocaust.Publishers Weekly starred review

The more Nazi leaders talked of radical solutions, fundamental solutions, total solutions, eradication, total liquidation and final solutions, the more obvious it became what finality would consist of. Browning takes us there, step by step, false lead by false lead, with never-failing intellectual mastery. It is difficult to see this work being superseded in the foreseeable future.Times Literary Supplement

[Origins of the Final Solution] is clearly structured, well-written, and free of intentionalist determinism. Its strength lies in the authors remarkable precision and eye for detail.American Historical Review

This book is Brownings most comprehensive worka blend of careful analysis of primary sources, broad geographical coverage, and civilized historiographical dialogue carried out in the text and notes. It deserves to be read and studied for many years.... Faced with difficult problems of interpretation, good scholars examine the relevant documentation carefully, consider the alternatives, and set forth clearly why they have reached their views. Browning and Mattus have both done this and more in this splendid volume.Richard Breitman, Central European History

With his characteristically meticulous research and reasoning, Browning has written what will quickly become a classic in Holocaust studies.Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Brownings account of the evolution of the Nazi genocide is the most comprehensive that has yet appeared.William D. Rubinstein, First Things

Brownings Origins illustrates the complexities of the decision-making process. This is an important book and to date marks the only comprehensive analysis of the origins of the Final Solution. For this reason it should be read by anyone serious about this subject. Scholars and graduate students alike will find it illuminating.H-Net Book Reviews H-German

Brownings volume is essential reading for all students of the Shoah.Library Journal

The prodigious scholarship and comprehensive bibliography that inform this volume makes it indispensable for understanding the origins of the Final Solution.Choice

Browning recounts the sequence of events that led from ethnic cleansing to the mass murder of Europes Jews.... It is the most detailed examination of this aspect of the Holocaust yet published.Booklist

[Brownings] sources strikingly reveal just how far and deep scholars have delved into the subject. The accumulated wealth of such detailed studies contributes equally with primary sources to produce this comprehensive overview.George C. Browder, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Browning has turned up a rich mine of information which provides nuance to, and enhances our understanding of, the various stages which accompanied Nazi Germanys thinking about the disposition of the Jewish communities it found under its control after the conquest of Poland.Arnold Ages, Chicago Jewish Star

Effective and powerful.... Not a cheerful book but one of the most profound meditations, however indirect, on the character of human wickedness in the 20th century. Read it and weep.Charles T. Mathewes, Virginia Quarterly Review

The Comprehensive History of the Holocaust

Yad Vashem initiated the Comprehensive History of the Holocaust project together with historians from a number of universities and research institutes. The project seeks to summarize research findings on the Holocaust during the generations following the war.

THE ORIGINS OF THE FINAL SOLUTION

THE EVOLUTION OF NAZI JEWISH POLICY, SEPTEMBER 1939MARCH 1942

CHRISTOPHER R. BROWNING

With contributions by Jrgen Matthus

Published by the UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS , Lincoln, and YAD VASHEM , Jerusalem

2004 by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem, Israel

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Browning, Christopher R.

The origins of the Final Solution: the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy, September 1939March 1942/Christopher Browning; with contributions by Jrgen Matthus.

p. cm.(Comprehensive history of the Holocaust)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8032-1327-1 (cl: alk. paper)

1. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945).

2. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)Causes.

3. JewsGovernment policyGermanyHistory20th century. 4. GermanyPolitics and government19331945. 5. GermanyEthnic relations. I. Matthus, Jrgen, 1959 II. Title. III. Series.

D804.3.B773 2004

940.531811dc22 2003060813

ISBN -13: 978-0-8032-5979-9 (pa: alk. paper)

ISBN -10: 0-8032-5979-4 (pa: alk. paper)

ISBN -13: 978-0-8032-5311-7 (electronic: e-pub)

ISBN -13: 978-0-8032-5312-4 (electronic: mobi)

The publication of this series was made possible by the generous gift of the Ike and Roz Friedman Family Foundation, in loving memory of Ike Friedman and Janis Friedman Yale and all those who perished in the Holocaust.

Illustrations

CHARTS

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Contents

Preface

This book on the origins of the Final Solution is part of a wider project for a multivolume comprehensive history of the Holocaust. This role shapes its conception and format in three fundamental ways. First, within this wider project as conceived of by Yad Vashem, it is just one of three volumes devoted to an examination of the development of Nazi Jewish policy. Since it will follow a volume on the prewar years, September 1939 is the clear starting point for this volume, and it makes no attempt to cover the earlier years beyond brief background references. It will precede a volume on the implementation of the Final Solution, and here there is no clear and unambiguous temporal dividing line between origins and implementation that would be valid for all regions of Europe under German occupation. We have chosen March 1942, the point when the Germans were poised to liquidate the Polish ghettos and gas Jews in Belzec, to receive the initial transports from France and Slovakia, to renew deportations from the Reich, and to launch the second wave of killing on occupied Soviet territory. In our opinion this cluster of fateful events marks the most reasonable dividing point between the origins and implementation of the Final Solution and the one best suited to our interpretational framework.

Second, while this volume was one of three specifically commissioned to focus on Nazi policy making, most of the remaining volumes of the series cover the histories of each national Jewish community in Europe under the impact of the Holocaust. Thus, in contrast to some recent works that have ambitiously sought to synthesize the history of the perpetrators and victims into a single narrative, this volume makes no such attempt to include the perspective and experience of the victims other than where the initiatives and tactics of Jewish leaders, particularly Rumkowski in Lodz and Czerniakow in Warsaw, played an important role in shaping Nazi policy. It does not seek to do superficially and redundantly what most of the other volumes in the series will do in great detail.

Third, when this wider multivolume project was originally conceived, it was immediately recognized that no project involving so many authors either could or should aspire to interpretational uniformity. It was accepted that different scholars would have different perspectives, approaches, and emphases, and that this pluralism inherent in the world of scholarship should be on display in the series. Discerning readers will note that the two authors of this volume articulate interpretations that differ in some small ways. We have made no attempt to force our views into a single mold but rather, in the spirit of the wider project, have let each interpretation speak for itself.