This is a summary of the notes (with partial analysis) which tackle the different interpretations for the Holocaust Coursework. This covers the important parts of the book which could support or weaken the interpretation you are going for, and which historian's view is the most convincing.
Lucy Dawidowicz ‘the War Against the Jews 1033-1945’ p.(Bantam books, 1986)
Page xxi = Hitler’s obsession with the Jews led him from early in his life to attach to the notion
that the “solution to the Jewish problem” could only be achieved by radical means, literally by
“eliminating” the Jews.
He drafted this blueprint for Germany within Mein Kampf.
Hitler had planned to murder the Jews along with his conquest for Lebensraum and wanted to
establish the Thousand Year Reich.
Page 3 = In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote that “twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew
corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as had happened to hundreds of
thousands of our very best German workers in the fields, the sacrifice of millions in the front
would not have been in vain.”- Could this be the first view of the idea of the Final solution that
eventually came to be?
Hitler succeeded in transforming the apocalyptic idea into concrete political action. The mass
murder of Jews was the consummation of his fundamental beliefs and ideological conviction.
Page 4 = “Hitler’s ideas about Jews were at the centre of his mental world”
Page 5 = “They determined the anti-Jewish policies of the German dictatorship from 1933-45
and they furnished the authority for the murder of Jews in Europe during World War 2”
We can’t be certain about whether his ideas in 1924 were the same ones that he held in the
early 20th century.
Page 6 = Hitler wanted to make it clear within Mein Kampf that he came to the conclusion of
the “Jewish Question” all on his own. There were clear influences upon im though such as the
high levels of antisemitism in Vienna
Page 12 = In 1913 and 14 he said that the best way to ensure the future of the German nation
was by destroying Marxism.
Page 16-17 = Hitler’s general ideas about the Jews were fixed in 1920- “Jewry is without
question a race and not a religious fellowship.”
“The effect of Jewry will be the racial tuberculosis of nations.”
In a letter in 1920 Hitler wrote that “antisemitism must lead to a systematic legal opposition
and elimination of the special privileges which Jews hold. Its final objective must be the removal
of Jews all together.”
In 1920 Hitler concluded with a promise “we will carry on the struggle until the last Jew is
removed from the German Reich.”
“Removal of the Jews from our nation because the existence of our own nation is more
important to us than some alien race.”
Page 50 = Reichstag fire was able to scapegoat communists
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