Summary Of The Origins Of The Final Solution By Christopher Browning

In the book “The Origins of the Final Solution” Christopher Browning discusses the argument to when the Nazis decided to commit genocide against the Jews and their reasons for doing so. Christopher Browning is a “moderate-functionalist” who believes that the plan of the Final solution was a progressive decision rather than something that was planned before the war began. By August of 1941 all factors were in place for the murder of all Jews in the Soviet Union. Intentionalists might argue that Hitler’s plan to destroy the Jews of the Soviet Union might have been a well thought out plan however, Browning argues how the term “final solution” did not mean the extermination of the Jews, it meant the deportation of the Jews. But only after the attack on the Soviet Union did the term change to the plan to exterminate the Jews.

Browning quotes, “To gain ground is irrelevant. The aim of the fight remains solely the complete destruction of the encircled enemy” (Browning 279). Browning alludes to the idea that high ranking officers had competed to impress Hitler. However, Eichmann did not give the time for Hitler’s authority and Heydrich suggested a proposal a couple weeks before. In June 1941, Operation Barbarossa had taken place. During this time Nazi Jewish policy was part of a larger plan that aimed to reconstruct racialism in Europe. This operation was just a code name for the Nazi’s invasion of the Soviet Union. In searching for answers to the question on when and why did the Nazis decide to commit genocide, the war against the Soviet Union had become a huge importance because the murdering of the Jews there has become a watershed in