| The Nazis used cattle-cars to send Jews to die in the Holocaust. The same cattle-cars sent German soldiers to die en masse in the First World War. Total German casualties in the First World War: 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. He was aware of the massive casualties. He knew 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 himself was head of the German government and nation and 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 his understanding of the nature of war--and his rights of military leaders in warfare--Hitler reasoned and concluded that if he had no regret about sending German soldiers to die, why would he not also have the right "to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?"
This was was the reasoning that generated the Holocaust. Hitler's logic: If the German nation gave him the right to send massive numbers of his own soldiers to die, would the German nation not also have the right to send massive numbers of Jews--enemies of the German people--to their deaths? This was Hitler's logic. The logic that generated the Holocaust.
| 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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