Auschwitz, The Nazis and the Final Solution

Second part in the BBC 6-part documentary series; ‘Orders and Initiatives’ highlights the crucial decision-making period of the Holocaust, encompassing the secret plans of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich. At a conference at Wannsee in January 1942, the participants work toward finalizing their goal-the systematic genocide of an entire people. The first gas chambers are built at Auschwitz and the use of Zyklon B is developed. German doctors arrive to oversee each transport, deciding who should live and who should die. In the final segment, Linda Ellerbee talks with Claudia Koonz, prof. of history at Duke University and author of The Nazi Conscience (2003) and Mothers in the Fatherland, Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics (1987); and Edward Kissi, prof. of Africana studies, University of South Florida, an expert on international relations and human rightsץ.