10 - The Holocaust

Summary

Many historians have alleged – or strongly implied - that the days of late November/December 1941 witnessed an escalation of the Shoa from localised ethnic cleansing to genocide on a continental scale on account of the outbreak of US-German hostilities. According to this theory, Hitler managed to convince himself that the war was militarily lost by virtue of the Red Army’s winter offensive and/or the US entry into the war and hence, decided to prioritise the mass murder of his (perceived) domestic enemies. Antisemitism pure and simple is seen as the key driver. This theory is problematic to say the least, since the situation outside Moscow would not come to be regarded as critical before mid-December.

I have concluded that the decision for the Shoah had almost certainly been made by late November and that there is indeed evidence which points to this being influenced by the assessment of imminent US-German hostilities. Crucially, however, it was put on hold for about a fortnight when the Germans arrived at the mistaken impression that Japan would not join them in hostilities. Antisemitism may have been important but was still trumped by strategic calculation.