The Seeds of the Final Solution

The Final Solution evolved slowly in the eyes of the Nazis, but with the process of the Euthanasia program and later Operation Barbarossa, the industrialization of killing began. The Euthanasia program, in which Hitler murdered the mentally and physically incapacitated of Germany, created the possibility—and incorporated the people—who could and did kill the innocent with impunity and disregard. Barbarossa commenced Hitler’s plan to kill the Jews, Commissars, and political undesirables as the Special Police Battalions and the Einsatzgruppen swept up those left behind when the German army marched through the USSR. What began as a program of Jewish emigration became one of extermination.