Quid Plura said:
DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Well, it is generally believed Hitler ordered them built. Or at least, he ordered the formation of the death squads (they had a proper German name, but... I can't spell it) and the concentration camps were built as an efficient way to keep unsavoury individuals in a convenient location.
Whether or not Hitler was... encouraged by his cabinet to make these orders is something people have been debating since the end of the war. But think of it this way: Hitler was more than happy to be the face of Nazi Germany, and under this, so many atrocities were committed. I doubt many people unworthy of demonisation would be okay with that position.
Well you just dropped a load of knowledge on me! Thank you
The Death Squads were callen Einsatzgruppen if I remember correctly.
Himmler was a very bad guy, but the one person who was even worse was Reinhard Heydrich. He started tests with gassing Jews (or the most efficient way to remove the Jewish problem, as he would've said). Himmler was a bureaucrat, Heydrich was a monster.
But don't forget that Hitler was the one who wrote Mein Kampf, in which he expressed his hate for Jews early on.
You are very astute to name Reinhard Heydrich. A friend of mine, currently planning his master thesis on European History compared that man to Hannibal Lector. Is in the fact here was a man of incredible gifts, and not an ounce of morals. To use the crudest term, he was in fact 'evil'. As close to the definition as one could imagine.
After all, it was he that ultimately was the driving force behind the Holocaust. Now, if one takes the theme proposed by the excellent docu-drama 'Conspiracy', it becomes even worse. The program is a staged reconstruction of the 1942 Wannsee conference. This being the conference where the where's and the how's of the Holocaust were mapped out.
Now what the script (taken directly from the minutes of the meeting) suggests that what we were seeing here was nothing more than a naked power grab by the SS. At the time, Heydrich was deputy to Himmler in the organisation, but his ambition would hardly have stopped there. Secondly, the SS can quite easily be compared to other 'Imperial Guard' organisations in history.
Like the Mamulks, Praetorians and Janniseries, here was an elite unit that used its close proximity to the centres of power to gradually become a state within a state. Ultimately in fact superseding the initial host. During the meeting, Heydrich outlines the present situation and his ultimate aims. He states directly that these orders have come from the Fuhrer and it is up to them to see that they are carried out.
By that he dictates that this grand 'Final Solution' and its execution has been placed solely in the care of his organisation, the SS. Thus, it is up to the other organs of the state to fall into line and make themselves at his disposal. Naturally, this ruffles some feathers in some of the older established bodies, especially concerning matters of law. This is well represented by the objections brought forward by Kritzinger and Stuckart. These however, were swiftly overruled and ultimately ignored by Heydrich's final announcement of the recent opening of Auschwitz. This ambush puts vast swaths of the German administration under Heydrich's direct control and amounts to nothing less than a logistical coup.
However, six months later, Czech resistance fighters (with British help) assassinated him. The only high-ranking Nazi official that Churchill sought to kill outright. The man was a monster beyond all reckoning.
However