Jewish Question - The Final Solution

The Final Solution

In Nazi Germany, the term Jewish Question (in German: Judenfrage) referred to the sense that the existence of Jews in Germany posed a problem for the state. In 1933 two Nazi theorists, Johann von Leers and Achim Gercke, both proposed that the Jewish Question could be solved most humanely by resettling Jews in Madagascar or elsewhere in Africa or South America. Both intellectuals discussed the pros and cons of supporting the German Zionists as well, but von Leers asserted that establishing a Jewish homeland in British Palestine would create humanitarian and political problems for the region. Upon achieving power in 1933, Hitler and the Nazi state began to implement increasingly radical measures aimed at segregating and ultimately removing the Jewish people from Germany and (eventually) all of Europe. The Haavara Agreement was signed, allowing 60,000 German Jews of the 522,000 residing in Germany in 1933 to emigrate to Palestine by 1939. The next stage was persecution of Jews and the stripping of Jews of their citizenship through the Nuremberg Laws. Later, during World War II, it became state-sponsored internment in concentration camps and finally, the systematic extermination of the Jewish people (The Holocaust), which took place as the so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Question.