Nazis and the Final Solution - Research Paper Example

Nazis and how the final solution came to be Although much debate still surrounds the issue, many would accept that the “Final Solution” (i.e., the gassing of Jews) had been determined once and for all by Hitler as of December 12, 1941. As Goebbels noted in his diary, on that day Hitler made clear to his associates that he now planned to fulfill his “promise” of exterminating the Jews. What many laymen do not know, however, is that this did not end the process. Over the next half year, the Nazis continued to test, put into operation, and refine more and more lethal methods of gassing. The following paper will discuss this process of refinement.  Gas vans employed the usage of poisonous cases to implement the ideology of mass murder of the Jews by the Germans. The initial slaughter of the Soviet Jews was carried out by shooting them individually. This method of slaughter or killing turned out to be inefficient and had certain negative outcomes. It not only proved as inefficient in murdering a large number of the Jews, but it also had devastating after-effects on the perpetrators. Problems such as alcoholism and psychological issues became common and widespread due to this method of murder. Himmler Heinrich, second in power to Adolf Hitler who led the breakthrough methods of employing “medicine” in the mass murder techniques and was also involved in the set up of the extermination camps, was himself a victim of the psychological after-effects caused by the shootings. He almost fainted at the sight of the 100 Jews being executed through shootings on the Russian front in 1941 (Nicholls 80, 117-118). These reasons urged and motivated them to experiment with other methods which were more effectual and could be performed in a more “humane” way causing lesser effects on the perpetrators. First experiments with poisonous gases were carried out in 1941 at various locations which were already occupied in Eastern Europe. The first “mobile gas van” was used in October 1941 in Serbia. Later, from December, the gas vans went into a process of systematic operation at Chelmno (Nicholls 80). Gas vans or the “killing vans” were basically trucks which had sealed compartments used for the murder of victims by Carbon Monoxide poisoning mainly (Gottfried 119). The journey of the Jews was initiated from the train cars where they were crammed and transported first to Kolo and then to Powiercie. Trucks from the junction took the prisoners to Schlosslager. Prisoners took a bathe there and any valuable objects under their possession were taken by the Germans. Stripped groups of fifty to seventy men, women, and children were forcefully directed towards a ramp which led to deceptive signs “To the Washrooms.” From there, the prisoners were cramped into gas vans and even during or after the killings the vans drove to Waldlager. The dead bodies were buried in massive graves and the vans were then cleaned by Jewish prisoners specially appointed for this job. In spite of the effectual exhaust fumes that were used for the mass murders, the gas vans eventually reflected some short-comings. The vans were not spacious and the requirement for deaths in the East was increasing tremendously. Moreover, the burial pits used after the gas vans execution procedures did not fulfill the requirements for secrecy of the government. Better methods of getting rid of the corpses had to be formulated to carry out the mass execution of the Jews (Rubenstein and Roth 196-197). More than 150,000 Jews were executed using the carbon monoxide gas vans at Chelmno in 1942. After Chelmno, four other extermination camps were put up in 1942 at Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec and by the end of 1942, Majdanek. The first three camps were successful in the mass murder of 600,000 Jews by using carbon monoxide gas as the killing agent (Nicholls 80). Operation Reinhard, which was the code-word for the secretive execution of the Polish Jews, was named after Reinhard Heydrich, one of the main architects of the Holocaust. His execution program for the Jews came to be known popularly later as Operation Reinhard after his death on 4th June 1942. General Odilo Globocnik took over the Operation Reinhard from 13 October 1941 and was directed by Himmler to build killing centers at Belzec. Each camp was located at very remote areas which reserved the security and secrecy of the extermination camps. Moreover, the rail lines were nearby which facilitated the transport of the prisoners. These camps were close to densely populated Jewish areas and, hence, the Jews were deceived that the transportation was only for “resettlement” of Jews to the East rather than mass extermination plans. Rudolf Reder, one of the only two known survivors of the Holocaust, explains the extermination camps as places that “served no other purpose but that of murdering Jews” (Rubenstein and Roth 197-199). The gas chambers disguised as showers at the extermination camps were equal to middle-sized rooms and used the preparations of carbon monoxide. Treblinka was the first to use carbon monoxide in the gas chambers. Belzec and Treblinka had diesel motors while Sobibor had an eight-cylinder Russian gasoline engine that released a mixture of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into the gas chambers (Rubenstein and Roth 198). Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps served not only as concentration camps but also extermination camps (Caplan and Wachsmann 154). Concentration camp system was defined as a type of camps with different purposes as compared to the extermination camps. These camps major functions were incarceration, forced labor, and extermination. The Auschwitz camp system also consisted of various other sub-camps (Berger 63). Auschwitz in Germany was chosen as a concentration camp initially for prisoners of war in 1940 until 1941 when the killing centers were started to build in Auschwitz. Till the end of March 1942, Jews were also transported in large numbers to the camps. It was here at Auschwitz that for the first time a new gas was experimented with known as Zyklon-B. This powerful pesticide was first tested on 3 September 1941 and killed 900 Soviet prisoners of war (Nicholls 80; Longerich 281). Zyklon-B is amethyst-blue crystals of hydrogen cyanide and had originally been used only as a strong disinfectant. The gas produced by these crystals took three to fifteen minutes to kill and Auschwitz was planned to have four gas chambers with Zyklon-B (Gottfried 91-96). Auschwitz became famous for the mass murders after Zyklon-B was put to implementation first at the Birkenau camp and only 20 percent of the victims who were transported to the camps were held as prisoners while the rest were all directed towards the “Bunker 1” and “Bunker 2” for execution by Zyklon-B (Caplan and Wachsmann 154-155). The Birkenau sub-camp at Auschwitz was officially constructed for the imprisonment of the Soviet prisoners of war and originally the transportation of Jews to Birkenau for the killing of Jews was not a part of the plan. The mass murders started at Birkenau during May 1942. A farmhouse outside the camp area was converted into gas chamber and was labeled “Bunker 1.’ During June-July 1942, a second installation was constructed called as “Bunker 2” (Caplan and Wachsmann 154-155). Other than Birkenau or Auschwitz II, two other sub-camps were also built including Stammlager, Auschwitz I (main camp) and Auschwitz III close to Monowitz (Rubenstein and Roth 204). Initially, only one gas chamber was used for gassing the victims. By the mid of 1942, two provisional gas chambers were allocated for the mass murders, Bunker 1 and Bunker 2. These were bricked buildings which had exhaust fumes and had signs of “To the Baths” for deceiving the victims. Victims were asked to enter the gas chambers for cleaning and delousing. Bunker 1 could accommodate 800 while 2 could hold 1,200 people at a time. In 1943, new gas chambers were launched with the shutdown of the two initial bunkers (Gutman et al. 161-164). After Himmler’s inspection of Auschwitz in 1941, many projects were initiated to improve and fasten the process of execution of Jews and disposal of the corpses. A plan included the construction of a crematorium which was capable of incinerating 1,440 bodies in a day. On 27 February, the order for the construction of the five-oven crematorium at Birkenau was passed. They were named as Crematoria II, III, IV and V. The gas chambers of the crematoria II and III had chambers arranged in straight columns and longitudinal axis, respectively, which improved the gas induction and uniform spread. The furnace room of the crematoria housed five ovens and two generators of coke gas on the opposite sides. Crematoria II and III furnace rooms also included special furnaces for incinerating less-valuable articles such as paper etc. Crematoria IV and V resembled the crematoria II and III in their components, dressing room, furnace room and gas chambers, however, the arrangement and distribution was different. The incineration of the corpses took after the victims were gassed to death by Zyklon-B. It took 20 minutes to incinerate three corpses in one retort. Around, 250,000 corpses could be cremated in 24 hours at crematoria II and III. More than one million were executed through the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and this mass murder was only made possible by the systematic installations (Gutman et al. 164-169). The Final Solution depicted a systematic and gradual plan of executing the Jewish population by the Germans. The tremendous amount of Jews that were executed at such a large scale only reflects the high level of industrialization, major efforts put into the transportation and secrecy and the systematic procedure from execution techniques to incineration of corpses. Final Solution stands apart from the other major genocides in the history because of the evolutionary “medical” experiments for execution, highly organized and methodical crematoria, gas chambers and furnaces and the various levels of deceptive techniques employed to keep the Jews unaware of their methodologies. The Euthanasia plan began in 1938 with children as the basic victims. In 1935, Hitler announced that euthanasia would progress to execute or get rid of the mentally ill children. However, in August 1939, adults were also included in these programs. A secret decree of October 1939 ordered the killing of “unworthy of life” including both children and adults. This plan was known as the T-4 plan as it was carried out from an unknown villa in Tiergarten 4 area of Berlin (Nicholls 79; Gutman et al. 301-302). The T-4 plan and the Final Solution although occurred at different times and circumstances but the underlying agenda and purpose was the same for the both plans meant execution of the Jews. Both the T-4 and the Final Solution were processed under basic rules of secrecy and camouflage. The medical killing of the medically ill was carried at a place labeled as “Reich Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes.” This deceived the others as if it was a nursing home for the ill and handicapped. Killings initially took place at pediatric wards through injection or starvation; hence, Hitler made it a priority to not publicly disclose the project. Later showers disguised as gas chambers were used for the execution of the handicapped adults and children which were analyzed and supervised by physicians and doctors (Gutman et al. 301-302; Friedlander 154). T4 killed 70, 000 people between October 1939 and August 1941 (Nicholls 79). The extermination camps at Auschwitz, as mentioned earlier, also focused on secrecy issues by using deceptive signs for guiding the victims to the gas chambers or transporting them under the “resettlement” promotion. The victims of execution of both the Auschwitz and the T-4 plans were transported to the extermination camps through deception. They were promised of resettlement of Jews in the East and taken to the killing centers. The gas chambers were the common means of execution in both Euthanasia and the Final Solution for the Jews. In euthanasia stations, the gas chambers that were used for the execution of the handicapped children and adults were static gas chambers. However, as Himmler commented, neither the static gas chambers nor the mobile chambers installed in automobiles were effective for the mass murder plans they had for the Jews. The gas chambers were disguised as showers and patients were gassed to death. These observations and discussions led to the mass-scale extermination plans at Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, gas chambers of larger size were employed which had attached furnace rooms and dressing rooms. The problem of burying the bodies in mass-scale graves was also overcome through the incineration process (Gutman et al. 154; Berger 61). The type of gas used during the euthanasia plan was carbon monoxide. The patients were asphyxiated through carbon monoxide. A doctors meeting agreed on the killing of every fifth psychiatric patient in the euthanasia program. However, the transportation and utilization of carbon monoxide was observed to be unsuitable during the euthanasia period of executions. Eichmann promised of improving the gas used for the executions through his relations to firms and institutions. It was after this that Zyklon-B was tested and implemented in the Auschwitz extermination camps (Gutman et al. 157; Longerich 281). The paper highlights the various techniques, methods and medical procedures experimented and implemented by the Germans during the Final Solution and the similarities of this final extermination plan to the initial “T-4” plan secretly planned by Hitler to get rid of the handicapped children and adults. An important aspect that is highlighted through the systematic development and progression of the extermination procedures is the medical experimentations and the vigilant participation of doctors and physicians in the whole procedure. Poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide and Zyklon-B were introduced as means of warfare in the history of genocide. The world was also introduced to the methodical steps involved in the mass-murder including the gassing of thousands of people at a time and incinerating their corpses effectively in a both secretive and effectual manner. Works Cited Berger, Ronald J. Fathoming the Holocaust: a social problems approach.  New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2002. Print. Caplan, Jane and Nikolaus Wachsmann. Concentration camps in Nazi Germany: the new histories. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2010. Print. Friedlander, Henry. The origins of Nazi genocide: from Euthanasia to the final solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Print. Gutman, Israel et al. Anatomy of the Auschwitz death camp. Bloomington: Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. by Indiana University Press, 1984. Print. Gottfried, Ted. Nazi Germany: the face of tyranny. Brookfield, Conn.: Twenty-First Century Books, 2000. Print. Longerich, Peter. Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Nicholls, David. Adolf Hitler: a biographical companion. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2000. Print. Rubenstein, Richard and John K. Roth Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Print. Read More