The Origins of the Final Solution is the most detailed, careful, and comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Nazi policy from the persecution and “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in 1939 to the Final Solution of the Holocaust in 1942.

Focusing on the months between the German conquest of Poland in September 1939, which brought nearly two million additional Jews under Nazi control, and the beginning of the deportation of Jews to the death camps in the spring of 1942, Christopher R. Browning describes how Poland became a laboratory for experiments in racial policies. He reveals how the subsequent attack on the Soviet Union opened the door for an immense radicalization of Nazi Jewish policy and marked the beginning of the Final Solution.

Meticulously documenting the process that led to this fatal development, Browning shows that Adolf Hitler was the key decision maker throughout, approving major escalations in Nazi persecution of the Jews at victory-induced moments of euphoria. Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, this groundbreaking work exposes a critical chapter in the history of the Holocaust.