ABSTRACT
In 1941 and 1942, the persecution of Europe’s Jews turned to mass murder. The Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe, as the Nazis called it, envisioned the killing of every Jew in Germany’s reach. Even before this shift, the Nazis adopted more organized maltreatment and even murder of other political and biological enemies. Victims ranged from disabled Germans to French African prisoners of war (POWs). At the same time Germany approved of murderous policies by their allies in southeast Europe, Romania, and Croatia. When Berlin reached the decision to murder Europe’s Jews, the Nazi state had already espoused mass murder as a desirable policy.
