ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a rather different point of view on the links between the “euthanasia” campaign and the “Final Solution” than that proposed by Burleigh. Friedlander does not believe that the murder of “life unworthy of life” was primarily or even partly motivated by a desire to “clear the decks” in preparation for war, as argued by Burleigh. For Friedlander, Nazi genocide was geared to the murder of biologically defined groups. While the regime killed political opponents, it set out totally to exterminate only three groups defined by their hereditary qualities as understood by the Nazis: handicapped people, the Jews, and the Gypsies.