"A exterminer en tant que partisans" Sur une note de Himmler
In: Politix: revue des sciences sociales du politique, Band 21, Heft 82, S. 9-37
ISSN: 0295-2319
There is the beginning of an agreement among historians: it was at the end of 1941, probably in December, that Hitler decided that no Jew would survive the war. This fact having been established, many questions remain unresolved. Indeed, although today we know that Himmler summarized his meeting with Hitler, on December 18, in a few words: "Jewish question: exterminate as partisans," we still don't not know exactly what this wording meant. Was it an order, the expression of a justification, a purely rhetorical formula? Moreover: what did the two men talk about, since it is clear that the whole meeting cannot be reduced to nothing more than the pronouncement of this sentence? By trying to reply to these simple questions, Florent Brayard actually retraces the evolution of the "Final Solution," a extremely complex program that caused the death of millions of people. Adapted from the source document.