Was the final solution planned or was it improvised?

The Final Solution was planned from the outset

The Final Solution was improvised

Learning objectives:•To build on what we already know about the build up to the Final Solution•To plan a Part A question about the Final solution

How can we explain the development of the extermination final solution?

• Experience of WWII – desensitised to violence, dehumanising, pressure on territorial solution- Russia/Madagascar/hostages

• Long-term anti-Semitism/scape-goating – propaganda impact, der Jude, dehumanising Jewish people

• Chaos of the Nazi state – Kristallnacht Goebbels, Hitler’s oral orders, Hitler retreated to the Berghof, Wansee Conference called to response from the Gauleiters pressure in Warthengau, radicalisation happened as lower down Nazis are trying to advance their careers

• Didn’t know – focusing on surviving, rumours, Hamburg 1942 newspaper headline ‘Exterminate all the Jews!’, senior Nazis said that Hitler knew and directed it, Hitler never made a spoken or written record directing or acknowledging

Use your books (if you need to) to explain why each of these events are significant in terms of

the Holocaust• 1933 Dachau camp opens• 1933 boycott of Jewish shops begins• 1935 Nuremburg Race Laws• 1938 Kristallnacht• 1939 Invasion of Poland• 1941 Himmler orders the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish

Question’• 1942 Wannsee Conference• 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising• 1945 Death marches begin as allies approach• 1945-6 Nuremburg trials

1. Why did Hitler decide to set up concentration camps?

2. Which 3 WW2 events do you think had the biggest impact on how Jews were treated? Explain the impact they had?

3. Have you changed your mind about whether the Final solution was planned or improvised?

Who was to blame for the final solution?

• Use your books and what we have learnt this lesson to fill in your worksheets

Who was to blame Evidence to support this (think about how the Final Solution came about, why it came about, whether it was planned or improvised)

Evidence to challenge this How credible is this blame?

Hitler

Nazis

Germans

Allies

Senior Nazis

No-one – product of long-held anti-Semitism and WWII

Use pgs 347-354 in pink book

Anything to add?

The Final Solution was planned from the outset

The Final Solution was improvised

A question planning

• Systematic extermination emerged as the Final Solution to the Jewish Question as result of the chaotic nature of the Nazi state. How far do you agree with this statement?

Let’s plan this together...

How would you have planned you answer differently if this was the

question?

June 2010, part A question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL2311470B0DFA4D16&t=478&v=fAAHqbv8nIU

How chaotic and organised was the state?

This is a photograph of the Berghof – the mountain retreat where Hitler spent most of his time from 1938.

What does this suggest to you about Hitler’s dictatorship? What do you think a chaotic plurocracy is?

Chaotic Plurocracy

Chaotic • Plurocracy – many people and organisations

creating Hitler’s will. These often overlapped with existing bodies.

• However – it is still a dictatorship – but perhaps not the most efficient kind!

Read through all of the factors on your handout.

• What interpretation do these sources have of Hitler’s dictatorship?

• Was Hitler’s rule a chaotic plurocracy?• Write in different colours

– Evidence to support this interpretation – Evidence to challenge this interpretation

How chaotic and organised was the state?

June 2010, part A question:

June 2011, Part B question:

Homework, due Tuesday 5 May