| The Nazis used cattle-cars to send Jews to die in the Holocaust. These were the same cattle-cars that Germany used to send their soldiers to die en masse in the First World War. Total German casualties in the First World War numbered 7,311,977 (Whalen, 1984). As the photos below show, young German men had no clue what their fate was to be. They were entirely unaware of what was going to happen to them.
Hitler understood what had occurred during the First World War; was aware of the massive casualties. He understood that Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff--on behalf of the German nation--had sent "the flower of German youth into the steel hail of war without feeling the slightest regret over spilling of precious German blood."
Twenty-one years after the conclusion of the First World War, Hitler was head of the German government and nation, therefore its military leader. He understood that as Germany's military leader, he had the right to send soldiers into battle with "no regret about the spilling spilling of precious German blood."
Based on this understanding of the nature of war--and rights of military leaders in warfare--Hitler concluded that, if he had no regret about sending German soldiers to die, would he not also have the right "to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?”
This was Hitler's reasoning that generated the Holocaust: If his nation gave him the right to send massive numbers of his own soldiers to die, would he not also have the right to require massive numbers of Jews--enemies of the German people--to die?
| LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER |
| German soldiers on the way to the Western Front: 2,037,000 dead; 4,300,000 wounded; 974,977 missing or prisoner; total casualties 7,311,977 (Whalen, 1984). |
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