Was 'the Holocaust' an inevitable result of the rise to Power of the Nazi Party in 1933?

Death March (Czechowice-Bielsko, January 1945), 1945, Jan Hartman

The Holocaust was the act of genocide of 6 million Jews during World War 2 by Nazi Germany. To discuss whether this was inevitable by 1933, one must analyse the policies of Hitler and the party by this period. These were underpinned by the views seen in Mein Kampf, which clarifies Adolf Hitlers' hatred of the Jews to a significant extent yet fails when using it as an argument towards the inevitability of the Holocaust but can be better used to describe the foundation behind it. The inevitability is seen far more convincingly after 1933 within the Nuremberg Laws and Kristallnacht which showed an increase in Anti-Semitism, culminating in the creation of the Final Solution in 1942.

Some historians have presented the Holocaust as an inevitable result of the rise to power of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933. The rise of the Nazi party can be mainly attributed to the fallout of the First World War and the instability that followed, leading to a nationwide Depression with increasing unemployment and poverty. Resultingly, the Nazi’s more radical approach to politics was seen as the only solution. Throughout this period, the leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, specifically focussed on using the Jews as a scapegoat, shown to be at fault for Germany’s problems. He was able to manipulate opinions against the Jews, attributing them to the strict actions taken in the Treaty of Versailles 1919, whom he claimed had metaphorically stabbed Germany in the back during the war. He furthered this view throughout the depression claiming Germany was in decline due to Jewish influence, stealing money whilst the poor were starving. Thus, using Propaganda, Hitler was able to win support, mainly from the lower middle class who had suffered greatly through this period and needed someone to blame for their struggles. The emphasis on the Jews being the issue laid the foundation for stronger actions taken against them in the latter Nazi period, showing to some extent the Final Solution may have been inevitable, even by this point due to the growing hatred of the Jews within the nation.

This point is supported convincingly by Mein Kampf, written by Hitler in 1925, which suggests the Holocaust was inevitable by 1933. Using the idea of a ‘germ” in 1920, Hitler is shown to further this view within Mein Kampf depicting the Jew as the complete ‘symbol of evil’, expressing that Hitler by 1925 had decided the Jews were the biggest problem to German growth, rather than just a nuisance as the term ‘germ’ suggests. This opinion appears to show greatly that through a rise of power, Hitler would strive to eradicate this evil, through any means necessary. A further quote, to eliminate the Jews “must necessarily be a bloody process”, primarily shows Hitler was planning to rid Germany of the Jews through violent methods before 1933. Through his written work, Hitler was able to influence a growing number of people with Anti-Semitic views that appeared to involve violence and eradication. Yet, one must not that there was no grand plan seen within Mein Kampf, but rather the thoughts and beliefs of Hitler that laid the foundations of what was to follow.

Although the rise of Anti-Semitic thought paved the way towards the Holocaust, actions past 1933 gave greater impetus to this inevitability. In the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the first Anti-Semitic action of Hitlers’ German leadership. Jews were deprived of German citizenship and forced to take measures to ensure segregation from the so-called greater German race, such as carrying different passports and adopting a Jewish name. This was later extended to the inability to marry someone of German heritage. These acts displayed the first sign of racism through segregation and intimidation, leading to the first major act of violence towards the Jews in Kristallnacht in 1938. Over one night, over 7500 Jewish businesses were destroyed, and 91 Jewish people were killed. A further 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, as Jews became prisoners of the German regime, rather than just segregated, showing the first allusion to the mass genocide that would happen within these camps. Thus, the last sign of peaceful Jewish existence within Germany had shattered due to these key developments after 1933.

Hatred towards Jews eventually culminated in the creation of the Final Solution in 1942, 9 years after the Nazis had risen to power. Despite having a hatred of the Jews, Hitler had no great plan to eradicate the Jewish population before this point, despite the idea to purify Germany, as even by 1938 Jews were introduced to Labour Camps to work for Germany, instead of being murdered. Those earlier in the period were also intimidated through methods such as racial segregation in order to force emigration. Thus, it was only by 1939 at the earliest the Jewish Problem was understood as one that would result in the Holocaust, due to most factors such as the Invasion of Poland, which had a large Jewish population, and the climax of earlier policies and beliefs. This climax can be found in a Hitler speech from 1939, advocating for the “annihilation of the Jewish Race within Europe” and following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot by German forces, alongside the creation of extermination camps such as Auschwitz. Thus, this provides crucial meaning to infer the inevitability of the Holocaust was only realised by 1939 at the earliest, rejecting the idea convincingly it was certain by 1933.

The stronger argument is that the Holocaust was not inevitable by 1933 after the rise to power of the Nazi Party. Despite a growth in Anti-Semitic thought and belief, seen in Hitlers' speeches and Mein Kampf, the developments past 1933 showed greater reason to lead to the Holocaust, seen in violence towards the Jews. Yet, these still fail to fully illustrate the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, which was only significantly realised from 1939 onwards.