Was the Holocaust intentional or functional?

[Esheaun Stroakuss]

The Holocaust could be perceived as inevitable, given the Nazi regime's overt anti-semitism and pogroms. However, did Hitler and the Nazi regime always have the intent and know-how when it came to exterminating all Jews, or was it a response to the ever-increasing expansion on the Eastern Front?

As someone who is interested in the topic and the Nazi regime, as well as the history of anti-semitism, I am curious to see where NS stands on this as both sides of the debate have valid points.

I want to point out that, for obvious reasons, this thread does not invite discussions on the historical validity of the Holocaust, nor does it invite Holocaust deniers.

[Nakena]

Intentional.

Specifically the decision was taken after the offensive against Moscow failed in December 1941.

Hitler knew instinctively he couldn reach his original objective (establishing his Empire) easily anymore, so he gave green light for another of his plans.

[The New California Republic]

In a speech in 1939 Hitler talked about the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe", and keeping people in large overcrowded camps with nowhere to go and no willingness to release them meant that Hitler was going to go down the route of turning the camps into death factories.

[Alvecia]

I mean, it was probably a developing idea from the start, given his antisemitism from day 1.
There were probably points where that dislike turned to hatred, which evolved into wishing death, which made it's way through several iterations of how.

[The Blaatschapen]

Intentional.

Intentional.

Specifically the decision was taken after the offensive against Moscow failed in December 1941.

Hitler knew instinctively he couldn reach his original objective (establishing his Empire) easily anymore, so he gave green light for another of his plans.

Indeed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference happened in January 1942.

[Ethel mermania]

The Holocaust was not inevitable.
The Holocaust was intentional.

[The Restored Danelaw]

The Holocaust wasn't "inevitable". To make it inevitable would take the agency of Nazi Germany and the German People who did it and as such take away the blame for said atrocities. It was, further, intentional as it was done on purpose and as a result of other plans Germans had for "finding an answer to the Jewish Question" failing to go anywhere.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Intentional. They probably planned it even before they gained power.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Absolutely intentional.

[Chan Island]

Very, very intentional. The Nazis even met a bunch of times and decided it in conferences.

The big one for me on this dichotomy is the fact that while the Nazis were being pummelled on 3 sides by the soviets and the allies, while their cities were being annihilated by bombers and Hitler was ordering divisions that didn't exist anymore to attack the Russians- the Nazis continued sending in millions of people into the death camps. The 'functional' or 'pragmatic' choice would have been to get the jews, gypsies, polish, socialists and everyone else to help you fight the war, but they never did that.

On every level, right from the beginning, through the entirety of their regime's existence, the holocaust was an intentional, organised, purposeful massacre.

[The Free Joy State]

It was intentional. In 1939, Hitler announced the plan to "[annihilate] the Jewish race in Europe". Before this, the process of "Aryanisation" (driving Jewish people out of German life, forbidding them from calling using professional titles such as "doctor", from participating in public life, from being German citizens, mandating the stamping of "J" on the passport, pogroms such as Kristallnacht) had already long since begun.

In the summer of 19441, when the war seemed to be going well, the Einsatzgruppen accompanied the SS and systematically murdered Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union as the Nazi State expanded. On December 8th of the same year, the Nazis began gassing Jewish people at Chelmno.

The systematic murder of Jewish people was always at the heart of Nazi plans. It was never an afterthought.

EDIT: That's ignoring the systematic and deliberate disenfranchisement of Communists and Socialists (who were jailed in concentration camps as early as 1933), gay men sentenced under harshened restrictions and sent to concentration camps, disabled people murdered in 1940 under Aktion T4, Poles sent to concentration camps, shot or forced to do forced labour (three million Polish people died), the Jehovah's Witnesses sent to concentration camps. The list just goes on. Millions of people systematically imprisoned and murdered for the Nazi notions of "uber-" and "untermensch" and "lebensraum".

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Hitler's racism was going to cause the holocaust eventually. Since the nazis viewed any jews anywhere as a threat to them, the only solution was to kill all Jews, and since they viewed slavs as a horde of subhumans to their east, German expansion necessitated the genocide of slavs in their eyes. It was always gonna happen. That was the plan from the moment Hitler took charge.

[Saiwania]

Nazi Germany wouldn't have pursued Jews to the ends of the Earth just to eliminate them. Initially, the regime was fine with Jews voluntarily leaving German territory for overseas, after depriving them of any valuable property.

The Nazis' problem was that no other countries would take Jewish immigration because of the Great Depression making anything that might strain welfare unpopular. Most of the world became isolationist with world trade restricted by tariffs. Also, the more territory Germany annexed, the more Jews and Slavs they had to micromanage when Germany's intention was to steal the land for German settlement and conversion to the needs of the Reich.

[Alvecia]

Nazi Germany wouldn't have pursued Jews to the ends of the Earth just to eliminate them. Initially, the regime was fine with Jews voluntarily leaving German territory for overseas, after depriving them of any valuable property.

The Nazis' problem was that no other countries would take Jewish immigration because of the Great Depression making anything that might strain welfare unpopular. Most of the world became isolationist with world trade restricted by tariffs. Also, the more territory Germany annexed, the more Jews and Slavs they had to micromanage when Germany's intention was to steal the land for German settlement and conversion to the needs of the Reich.

German territory just happened to be everyone else's at the time.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Nazi Germany wouldn't have pursued Jews to the ends of the Earth just to eliminate them. Initially, the regime was fine with Jews voluntarily leaving German territory for overseas, after depriving them of any valuable property.

The Nazis' problem was that no other countries would take Jewish immigration because of the Great Depression making anything that might strain welfare unpopular. Most of the world became isolationist with world trade restricted by tariffs. Also, the more territory Germany annexed, the more Jews and Slavs they had to micromanage when Germany's intention was to steal the land for German settlement and conversion to the needs of the Reich.

This is literally one of the most revisionist takes i have ever seen on the holocaust. You know why it's wrong? Cause the nazis wanted to eventually create a world that was entirely the Axis. Nazi Europe. Japanese East Asia. Italian Mediterranean. Fascist South Africa. Fascist western hemisphere. Fascism everywhere. And to them the Jews would always be a threat no matter where they were, especially if the place they were in would eventually be part of the Reich and friends. They were trying to kill every Jew.

[Salus Maior]

Intentional.

Specifically the decision was taken after the offensive against Moscow failed in December 1941.

Hitler knew instinctively he couldn reach his original objective (establishing his Empire) easily anymore, so he gave green light for another of his plans.

That's not actually true.

The Holocaust started in Poland, and was well underway in the USSR well before December. The Babi Yar massacre for example started in the September of 1941, and the Einsatzgruppen were doing their "cleaning up" behind the front lines well before the German offensives started to falter.

If you mean when the Holocaust took the form of Auschwitz-style gas chambers, yes that was later.

[Aclion]

Both. When authoritarian regimes gain power by promising the impossible they inevitably need a scapegoat to destroy when they fail to make good on their promises, and the nazis bakes such a scapegoat into their ideology from the beginning.

[Nakena]

Intentional.

Specifically the decision was taken after the offensive against Moscow failed in December 1941.

Hitler knew instinctively he couldn reach his original objective (establishing his Empire) easily anymore, so he gave green light for another of his plans.

That's not actually true.

The Holocaust started in Poland, and was well underway in the USSR well before December. The Babi Yar massacre for example started in the September of 1941, and the Einsatzgruppen were doing their "cleaning up" behind the front lines well before the German offensives started to falter.

If you mean when the Holocaust took the form of Auschwitz-style gas chambers, yes that was later.

Yes. I meant the decision for the Final Solution.

Both. When authoritarian regimes gain power by promising the impossible they inevitably need a scapegoat to destroy when they fail to make good on their promises, and the nazis bakes such a scapegoat into their ideology from the beginning.

The jews were from the beginning onwards considered to be a different and evil race of humans by Hitler. Like David Icke's reptiloids.

[Salus Maior]

Yes. I meant the decision for the Final Solution.

Well, that decision was already made when Barbarossa started.

It started with shooting the Jews, then it moved to using vehicle exhaust, then they made the actual gas chambers.

The decision was already made to exterminate the Jews, what changed was its efficiency. And also, apparently too many soldiers were starting to mentally break after having to personally murder thousands of men, women, and children, so they wanted to move onto something less personal for efficiency's sake.

[Kexholm Karelia]

Nazi Germany wouldn't have pursued Jews to the ends of the Earth just to eliminate them. Initially, the regime was fine with Jews voluntarily leaving German territory for overseas, after depriving them of any valuable property.

The Nazis' problem was that no other countries would take Jewish immigration because of the Great Depression making anything that might strain welfare unpopular. Most of the world became isolationist with world trade restricted by tariffs. Also, the more territory Germany annexed, the more Jews and Slavs they had to micromanage when Germany's intention was to steal the land for German settlement and conversion to the needs of the Reich.

This is literally one of the most revisionist takes i have ever seen on the holocaust. You know why it's wrong? Cause the nazis wanted to eventually create a world that was entirely the Axis. Nazi Europe. Japanese East Asia. Italian Mediterranean. Fascist South Africa. Fascist western hemisphere. Fascism everywhere. And to them the Jews would always be a threat no matter where they were, especially if the place they were in would eventually be part of the Reich and friends. They were trying to kill every Jew.

Horseshoe theory is being proven time and time again

[Aclion]

Both. When authoritarian regimes gain power by promising the impossible they inevitably need a scapegoat to destroy when they fail to make good on their promises, and the nazis bakes such a scapegoat into their ideology from the beginning.

The jews were from the beginning onwards considered to be a different and evil race of humans by Hitler. Like David Icke's reptiloids.

Yeah

[Punished UMN]

The idea that it was functional relies on the faulty premise that the war wasn't planned before Hitler ever came to power. Of course it was intentional.

[Kathol Rift]

Very intentional. As several people in this thread have pointed out already, it had been talked about several times prior to the losses on the Eastern Front, and the killing had already begun on a smaller scale as well. Hitler knew exactly what he meant to do.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Very intentional while functional at the same time. Disgusting no matter how you see it nevertheless.

[Saiwania]

This is literally one of the most revisionist takes i have ever seen on the holocaust. You know why it's wrong? Cause the nazis wanted to eventually create a world that was entirely the Axis. Nazi Europe. Japanese East Asia. Italian Mediterranean. Fascist South Africa. Fascist western hemisphere. Fascism everywhere. And to them the Jews would always be a threat no matter where they were, especially if the place they were in would eventually be part of the Reich and friends. They were trying to kill every Jew.

This interpretation is flat out wrong though. Nazi Germany had no desire or means for world conquest. If anything, it was only a project for continental dominance and to secure whatever resources were necessary to be economically self sufficient. Invulnerable to any blockades or sanctions. Do people even understand how much of a pain in the ass it'd be to rule over too much territory from an administrative perspective? Jews which remained outside of German territory or jurisdiction were safe.

Hitler's main project was limited to conquering eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which would include the Caucasus for oil. France and the UK were side quests which annoyed him. He did what he could to defeat both out of military necessity but only succeeded with France and prematurely gave up on attacking the UK when he felt they were isolated enough as to be ignored.

I'm not one to deny that the Holocaust happened if the facts support otherwise. Yes, its obvious to me that many people died as a consequence for the Nazis' beliefs with regards to Eugenics/Social Darwinism and because of ideology with regards to the Slavs. I just don't think the atrocities were the most important aspect of the period or the war. It was functional in that it nonetheless helped acheive German war aims and ambitions with regards to Lebensbraum.