Eric Kurlander (DeLand): Before the »Final Solution«. Toward a Global History of the Nazi »Jewish Question« 1919–1941

Commentator: Jean-Marc Dreyfus

When the »Jewish Question« is discussed by historians, it is almost always examined as a prelude to the Holocaust – what the Nazis called the »Final Solution [Endlösung]« to the »Jewish Question [Judenfrage]«. What gets overlooked in this understandable focus on genocide is that the »Final Solution« emerged very late in the history of the Nazi »Jewish Question«, after many other so-called »solutions« had been pursued. What were the various conceptions and »solutions« to the (Nazi) »Jewish Question« in the period before the »Final Solution«? To what degree did other European and non-European states help define, determine, or oppose these conceptions of the »Jewish Question« and its various solutions? What were the ethnonational and geographic, political-institutional, cultural and intellectual, and socioeconomic constraints?

Information and contact: Jürgen Finger