From: "Phil Payne" 

> Ok, this is an interesting take.  Do you or do you not believe that Hitler
> was responsible for the Holocaust?

Obviously I do.  He created the environment, applied the pressure, and
signed off the funds.  But he was very detached from the whole process.
Hitler didn't state - at any time - that Jews were to be murdered en masse.
Have you read Mein Kampf in the original German?  I have. All he demanded
was that all Jews be removed from the Reich.  Expatriation was tried first,
and when that didn't perform as expected they turned to murder (the
Einsatztruppen) and when that wasn't as effective as they wanted, they
turned to production line murder. There was a cost-benefit analysis at one
point that counted the cost of each bullet and considered how many bullets
were required, suggesting that live burial was much cheaper but mass
gassing was more humane.

You have to read some of this stuff.

Hitler didn't order the changes, but he knew about them and didn't object.

NAZI documents of the time blame the USA - for demanding fees to accept
Jewish migrants.

From the Wannsee Protokol, widely accepted as the initiating document for
the Final Solution:

"The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German
problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to
which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal.
Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments
for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing,
the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the
cancelling of such, increased extraordinarily the difficulties of
emigration."

You can have the German:

"Die Auswanderungsarbeiten waren in der Folgezeit nicht nur ein
deutsches Problem, sondern auch ein Problem, mit dem sich die Beh”rden der
Ziel- bzw. Einwandererl„nder zu befassen hatten. Die finanziellen
Schwierigkeiten, wie Erh”hung der Vorzeige- und Landungsgelder seitens der
verschiedenen ausl„ndischen Regierungen, fehlende Schiffspl„tze, laufend
versch„rfte Einwanderungsbeschr„nkungen oder -sperren, erschwerten die
Auswanderungsbestrebungen auáerordentlich. Trotz dieser Schwierigkeiten
wurden seit der Macht�bernahme bis zum Stichtag 31.10.1941 insgesamt rund
537.000 Juden zur Auswanderung gebracht."

The NAZIs developed a very peculiar view of the world and built
justification on top of justification.  This is the process I see in the
USA at present and it frightens me.

Hitler wasn't the Holocaust's architect.  Most lay that at Himmler's front
door, with Heydrich and Eichmann as (very) willing assistants.  Where I
deviate from the accepted view is that I give Josef Goebels a prime
position.  Not in execution.  But in promotion.  I believe Goebels was as
active a propagandist within the inner NAZI circle as he was outside it.

>  If he was so clever with his signature, what should that say about
relieving Saddam of his culpability?

Nothing, of course, but it shifts the burden of proof.

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