Possible Causes of the Holocaust

Most of the world will no longer deny the mass murder of millions of Jews during World War II (1939-1945). The Holocaust is not a secret anymore. But was the Holocaust the brainchild of a deviant individual or was it an event that came only out of "necessity?" Was the Shoah intentional or was it functional? Or will we ever know for sure? The answer to that question is no, at least not presently.

Historians searching for answers to the question of how the murder of a nation came about are often led into a dead end. There is not a single document to be found affirming that genocide of the Jews was the original plan. What documents can be located are filled with ambiguities and illusive language. The Jews were often referred to as the "Jewish problem" or the "Jewish Question" and to solve this the Germans concocted the "Final Solution". What exactly did the Final Solution entail? Perhaps the world will never know. The only thing for certain is that over ten million Jews were exterminated starting as early as the 1930?s.

There are two arguments for how the Holocaust was put into play: intentionalism and fundamentalism. Intentionalists argue that the extermination of the Jews was the plan of Hitler from the very start of his dictatorship and his annexation of Europe. Fundamentalists argue that, though a figurehead, Hitler was not directly responsible for the mass killings that occurred during the course of World War II. Instead, they believe that a series of events led to the decision of mass extermination. But as different as these explanations for the actions of the Nazis are, there a few things that are undisputable.

Yes, the Nazis systematically murdered millions of people driven by an ideology of a supreme huma...

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...ll capable of such an atrocity today is repulsive.

But we will never really know how the Holocaust happened. The lack of documentation will leave the how an open ended question. Most of the Nazi archives were destroyed and what is left is masked in illusive language and innuendoes. It is quite possible that even Hitler himself did not know how the Shoah came about. He may have never even been involved with the planning of mass murder. Then again he could have been the mastermind behind it all. Even if he was, how did he get so many ordinary people to carry out such a horrendous duty? There are so many questions and so few answers. After all the reading and research I have done, I find myself more confused now then I was in the beginning. I think in the end, no one is right and no one is wrong because trying to read the human mind will lead to a dead end.