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Ryan Morris

College English

Mr. Neuburger

Date 9-9-08

Research Paper

The Story of the Holocaust

The big mistake started on January 30, of 1933 when Germany appointed Adolph Hitler

as chancellor of Germany. Shortly after Hitler assumed the role as chancellor, the wheels began

churning in motion to begin a terrible tragedy. The tragedy, known as “The Holocaust,” targeted

a variety of people, primarily the Jewish race, killing them in several different ways. According

to the research of University of South Florida, approximately eleven million people died during

this disaster. This terrible tragedy brought death upon enough people to consider it a mass killing.

The types of people targeted in this disaster were the Jewish, gypsies, African Americans,

homosexuals, socialist, political enemies, communist, and the mentally disabled. (Par 1). Hitler

and his staff developed many different ways to kill many people, and in the end perfected

everything. Many people do not really grasp the concept or reasoning of the Holocaust. In order

for one to truly understand the Holocaust, one must understand the Nazi’s motivations, the lack

of resistance to the Nazi regime, and the Germans’ innovations for killing a mass number of

Jews. However, one thing many people should realize is that the mastermind behind it all was a

very intelligent, deceitful, and persuasive person.

Hitler’s tirade began when he was a younger child. At the age of nine, he became very

intrigued by the topic of German Nationalism; so interested he became a German soldier. He

served in World War one. While he was lying in a hospital bed after he had been temporarily
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been blinded by a gas attack, he found out that Germany surrendered. There in the bed Hitler felt

endless emotions. He felt baffled, betrayed, and even crushed that the Germans would surrender.

He couldn’t believe that they would do such thing. He was terribly devastated. Many people

close to Hitler as a young child described him as a “strict” young man. Some said that he was

also very polite. Then every thing just exploded. After he became chancellor of Germany he

cleared out over six million Jewish people. Hitler took over a nation with only five hundred and

sixty six thousand Jewish people in it. Many may ask what Hitler had against the Jewish people,

and the most common response known is that Hitler wanted to build a perfect race. Hitler’s

perfect race consisted of Aryan people. So to end this imperfect race Hitler felt it necessary to

eradicate or exterminate all imperfect people. To Hitler, the Jewish were not the only imperfect

people. He also felt that homosexual, disabled, Gypsies, and obviously the Jewish people were

imperfect as well.

Hitler and his crew had to try and find out how to exterminate all of these imperfect

people. They had killed quite a few of people, but none compared to the Final Solution. The idea

of the Final Solution was discussed at the Wannsee Conference. The Wannsee Conference was

held in Berlin Germany. At the Wannsee Conference Hitler met with 15 of his highest staff

members. At this meeting they discussed how they were going to rid Germany of all of these

imperfect people. That’s where Hitler and his staff created the Final solution. The Final Solution

came up with many different ideas on how to exterminate all of the Jewish people that they had

missed. This meeting by far set up Germany for success. This meeting was held on January 20,

1942. The goal of this conference was too simple; they had to find out a ways to rid Germany of

all of these so called imperfect people. So they had to try and come up with ways to exterminate

all of the Jewish, homosexual, disabled, and gypsies out of Germany. As Reinhard Heydrick said
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‘Europe would be combed of Jews from the east to the west.’ As history place goes on further to

state that Heydrick, who lead the conference, had every single step and every single minute

planned out before they entered the meeting.

The first topic at the Wannsee conference was concerning the Final Solution, and the

Jewish question. They began conversation by explaining why the conference had been called.

Secondly they discussed if they were to make the Jewish people flee, where exactly they would

go. They had no where to go. Anyplace that they would have to flee to would create many

problems. Any other countries could not afford to take on such mass number of people. Many

dictators would throw a fit. There economy would just simply not hold up. Demand for certain

items, would not be available. They had no idea what they were going to do. One idea was to

evacuate all Jewish people to the Far East, but with to many obstacles, that was simply not an

option any longer. They just could not find out what they were going to do.

Then later in a meeting that day, one someone had an idea to extend the idea of work

camps and create more of them. This way the Jewish people would not be doing anything except

working like slaves. All fifteen of Hitler’s staff members loved the idea of Concentration camps.

After later discussion they had begun to wonder why they couldn’t create death camps. In these

camps they would trick the Jewish people to think that they were going to go to concentration

camps. The Jewish people would not resist going to concentration camps because they knew that

if they would do that they would get killed. Also, many Jewish people would rather have stayed

alive and work than be killed. These concentration camps were essential in Hitler’s tirade. This

killed the majority of the people, and some that may have lived barley escaped and to this day

have terrible thoughts about the days of the holocaust.

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There is still one major question up in the air. Why would Hitler do such terrible things,

and how could his mind bare doing all of these. Well Hitler as a young boy had a very rough

life. He was beaten as a child by his father. A lot of his siblings died. He was dropped out of

school because he missed so much school and got behind. To cap it all of he fought his heart out

in war, shortly after he couldn’t fight anymore, he heard that Germany surrendered. He was a

very depressed man. So one should realize what happen in his life before they try and make

sense of anything that happen. It is not an excuse for his terrible actions, but may explain why

he did what he did. This terrible tragedy has many things many people do not understand, for

them to understand they need to research the Holocaust.