32

Heidegger, History and the Holocaust

Wannsee and the way this problem was approached both in the conference itself
and in the events which paved the way for how that meeting would proceed. After
all, one hardly needs to be reminded that the expression of extreme xenophobia
is not exclusive to Hitler or indeed to German Nazis; would that that were the
case! Xenophobia is very much an ongoing issue and the concomitant problems
of genocide and ethnic cleansing have not, as it happens, remained historical
anomalies belonging only to the accounts of the Nazi regime in our history books.
Xenophobia and genocide have continued to ravage countries and communities
right to the present day. What makes the Holocaust interesting for our purposes is
the manner in which xenophobia and its genocidal aspirations were realized during
the Third Reich and that leaves the door open for some startling comparisons which
suggests, perhaps for the first time, where our most urgent interpretative energies
should in fact be directed!17

The Wannsee Conference Protocol

The minutes of this notorious conference, where plans for the Final Solution were
apparently finalized, report that Heydrich opened the meeting with an avowal that
he had been appointed delegate for final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.18
Heydrich goes on to note that the meeting had been convened to clarify fundamental
questions. Other delegates confirmed that they too had been charged with finding
a solution to the Jewish problem without regard to geographic borders. This would
seem to suggest that the Nazis looked on the Jewish question as, at the very least, a
European-wide problem, one that they were bent on resolving. The problem to date
had been approached on the basis of two fundamental aspirations: 1. the expulsion
of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people and 2. the expulsion of
the Jews from the living space of the German people. These objectives were initially
achieved through mass deportations of the Jews from German territory; this was seen
as the only feasible solution at that time and every effort had been made to that point to
maximize the efficiency of that process. However, the process of enforced emigration
had begun to place a considerable strain on resources; already over-extended officers,
administrators and supervisors were levied with even more work and demands were
issued from the newly occupied countries for financial aid in order to deal with the
influx of Jewish guests! Notwithstanding the various difficulties encountered, from
the time of the Nazi seizure of power until 31 October 1941, the Nazis had managed
to deport 537,000 Jews from German territories. The minutes then describe a new
approach which had been employed in recent times involving
the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Fhrer gives the appropriate approval in advance. These actions are, however, only to be considered
provisional, but practical experience is already being collected which is of
the greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish
question.19