Nazis decided to commit genocide. Was this always Hitler's intention from the beginning? If not, why and when did it change? If so, why the various policy changes? Please illustrate your answer with specific historical examples.While the process of killing a lot of people in a dedicated and concentrated fashion might seem easy enough, that was far from being the case. One method that was ruled out right away was the use of bullets due to the cost and time involved. There was also deemed to be a toll on the soldiers committing the killing. In terms of process, the Nazis went so far as to actually engage in tests. For example, they tested using carbon monoxide and cyanide gas. The early "guinea pigs" were Russian prisoners and mental patients. Expulsion was considered as well but the expansion of the country made this a hard sell because invading other countries, by itself, added significant numbers to the Jewish population. For example, the takeover of Poland led to an increase of two million Jews. The moderate functionalist position was to simply have the Jews removed from the "living space" of the master race. Of course, this is easier said than done when there are millions and millions of Jews.

The general intention from the beginning was to remove the Jews via whatever means with as little to no impact as possible. That was not the easiest thing to deal with given that many Jews had property and removing that many people without a trace is hardly an easy thing. After an amount of experimentation and looking at the efforts of others to do the same or similar things, this is when concentration/killing camps were settled upon. Hitler firmly decided, in the end, that simply removing the Jews would not work and would take too much time. Further, he wanted the Jews entirely gone rather than allowing them to be able to repopulate in other areas. As such, the mass death camps usurped expulsion/deportation (something tried earlier on) and shootings as the best way to get rid of them, one and for all.

In terms of examples, there was the Madagascar effort which shows the issue...

The absorbing of other countries led to the logistical effort of removing them all, as noted above. The toying with cyanide and other gases meant to kill en masse started in 1941 and that was indeed the way they went about it in the end. In short, there was a bit of trial and error and/or internal debate and it culminated with the use of mass murder as a way to get it done without the so-called mess of expelling the Jews and/or allowing them to regroup and recollect in other parts of the world. There was an evolution and progression within the law as well. There was a ban on hate speech in Vichy/France but that was done away with in 1940 after France was invaded. Beyond that, leaders that were blatant anti-Semites were able to rise to power. Laws that allowed and called for the seizure of Jewish property, one of the logistical concerns that arose when it came to getting rid of the Jews, were put into place. In short, the mindset about the Jews changed and they went so far as to change the laws and standards rather than simply ignore the ones that were already in place. Many Jews were warned. Some left of their own volition and were able to escape. Others still were rounded up and eventually sent to Auschitz and other concentration camps as the level of effort to eliminate the Jews was ramped up. Many of the countries that Germany expanded into were already anti-Semitic. However, this obviously got ramped up when the Nazis entered the fray. Regardless, there were certainly some willing parties in some of the countries, such as Romania.
Part II: Diary Essay:

To what extent do the diary entries in Salvaged Pages show that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was already underway within the ghettos? Please support your argument with examples drawn from the Salvaged Pages.

Just one example of this in motion was that concentration camps and ghettos actually bled together and were linked in many ways. It was not just about mass killings and murder. Indeed, there were a number of anti-Semitic movies that were part of the ghetto/Jew movement. People as high as Goebbels reacted…