SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 223
gences appear in respect of two connected questions: on the one
hand the nature of the process by which the decision was taken and
more particularly the role of Hitler and his ideology, on the other
hand the moment at which this decision was taken. As Martin Broszat
has rightly stated, a diversity of interpretation advises us that
any kind of theory on the origin of the ‘final solution’ belongs to the
field of probability rather than to that of certainty.” (Emph. added)
Browning then sketched out a summary of these “major divergences”:
648
“For Lucy Dawidowicz the conception of the final solution antedates
its implementation by twenty years; for Martin Broszat the
idea emerges from practice: the sporadic assassination of groups of
Jews gave rise to the idea to assassinate all of the Jews systematically.
Between these two extremes we have a great number of interpretations.
Thus, Eberhard Jäckel believes that the idea to kill the Jews
sprang up in Hitler’s mind at the end of the 1930s. Karl Dietrich
Bracher supposes that it already existed at that time. Andreas
Hillgruber and Klaus Hildebrand maintain the supremacy of ideological
factors but do not propose any precise date. Others, not all
of them functionalists, place the decisive turn into the year of 1941;
but as far as that year is concerned many dates have been suggested.
Léon Poliakov believes that the most probable date is the beginning
of 1941, whereas Robert Kempner and Helmut Krausnick sustain
that Hitler took this decision in the spring in connection with the
preparations of the invasion of Russia. Raul Hilberg thinks that the
decision was taken in the summer when the massacres perpetrated in
Russia led to the belief that this solution would also be possible in
all of Europe for a victorious Germany. Uwe Dietrich Adam asserts
that it was taken in autumn when the military offensive slowed down
and it became apparent that a ‘territorial solution’ by way of a mass
expulsion into Russia thus became impossible. Sebastian Haffner, finally,
who is certainly not a functionalist, supports an even later
thesis, early December, when the feeling of an eventual military defeat
caused Hitler to seek an irrevocable victory over the Jews.”
Here Browning wonders:
“How are we to explain such a diversity of interpretations as to
the type and the date of the decision concerning the final solution?”
648 Ibid., p. 192.