Thesis: Intentions that led to the Final Solution.
“If, for example, a fire destroys a building and an inspection shows that the fire seems to have begun simultaneously at various parts of the building, this in itself – in the present – would be evidence (not indubitable, but probable) that the fire had been ‘intended,’ even though no other external evidence existed; the process here is a matter of inference, based on the improbability of simultaneous ‘combustions“‘ (257). I really like the comparison Berel Lang wrote here. I was having trouble following the reading, and this really made it make sense. He was describing intention. This makes it clear that the Final Solution was intentional, because it wasn’t just one place that Jews were being annihilated, rather it was happening throughout the country.
Lang writes, “Individuals or groups sometimes lie in speaking about their intentions; they may also deceive themselves or be unaware in a number of other ways of what exactly they are doing“ (258). This is a great explanation for how so many people were on board with what the Nazis were doing. When an intention is hidden from the public, it can be very easy to deceive the masses.
“They could claim this, however, only on the supposition that what is at issue in analyzing the history of the ‘Final Solution’ is whether or not it occurred intentionally – when it is the question of what corporate intentions are that is a prior and decisive issue for the claims they make, one that they fail to address directly and thus, in the end, also mistake” (262). It is important to consider whether the final solution happened intentionally. I would think that it definitely happened intentionally, going back to the comparison with the house fire.