The Holocaust began on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union before the establishment of death camps and gas chambers. The Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) followed the German army into Russia and murdered 1.2 million Jews in late 1941 and early 1942 east of the Soviet border.

Hitler was undisturbed by the extermination of men, women and children:

“If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without regret for the shedding of valuable Germany blood, then I have naturally the right to destroy millions of men of inferior races who increase like vermin” (Meltzer, 1976).

As commander-in-chief of a great nation-state, Hitler understood that national leaders have the "right" to send his own soldiers to die in battle. He reasoned that if nation-states have the right to sacrifice their most valuable members, certainly the nation also had the right to take the lives of its least valuable members.

The logic of the Holocaust followed based on the logic of war.

Richard Koenigsberg