To what extent was Hitler solely responsible for the Holocaust

The first 200 words of this essay...

To what extent was Hitler Solely responsible for the Holocaust?

While undeniable the holocaust will forever remain as one of the darkest passages in history, an argument has emerged amongst historians concerning its origins and over who instigated it. Many historians view the path to Auschwitz and the massacre of the Jewry as a 'straight road', seeing Adolf Hitler (military and political leader of Germany 1933-1945) as the sole instigator of the event, while others claim that the responsibility of the Holocaust lies with numerous other perpetrators, such as the bureaucracy, architect of genocide Heinrich Himmler and the ordinary German citizens. This essay attempts to analyze who in bears the ultimate responsibility for one of the biggest crimes against humanity. Is Hitler the soul individual behind the genocide of the Jewry or can the responsibility be divided up with numerous other agencies involved.

In order to answer whether Hitler was central to the Holocaust and its occurrence, one needs to be able to understand why Hitler expressed such a vehement hatred towards the Jews. Although Historians have long debated where Hitler acquired his anti-Semitic views from, Hitler himself has stated that they were first developed in Vienna between