The “Final Solution” in Some Detail and More on Its Justification.

The ongoing debate between those who are called “intentionalists” and those called “functionalists” among the scholars who deal with the origins of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” should be mentioned here briefly. In my view, the debate represents two artificially separated aspects of Hitler's motives and actions while missing a most important mixture in him of what he believed to be his political genius and political action in response to the challenge, which he offered to others. This was combined with a sense of victimization and threat, of taking revenge and making his point in spite of and because of others' refusal to respond positively to his shorter-range overtures, plus rationalization mechanisms that legitimized his longer-range aims and basic convictions. What we have here is the multidimensional behavior of a man who was capable of living in several combined spheres: those of his ideology, his political and strategic calculations, and his reaction to his enemies' actions and their reactions for his own actions, which always made them responsible for his own actions against them. His previous successes, fears, and contempt toward his enemies should be added to the adopted and probably fragile perception of himself as a genial phenomenon, the redeemer of his own people and the incarnation of their best traits, previously in a state of decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]