Was the Holocaust inevitable

Answer 1

Most historians including E H Carr would be outraged that the term 'inevitable' is being used like this. They feel that no historical event can be labelled 'inevitable'. The Holocaust must be studied in its own terms, without adding labels to it. I would argue that it wasn't anyway, because events that led to Hitler having power to commit such an atrocity were out of his own hands and may not have unfolded as they did if his subordinates had reacted differently.

Answer 2

At some stage in 1941 the regime took a conscious decision. It may have been an obvious part of a wider ideological commitment to rid the world of what the Nazis regarded as "Jewish Bolshevism". Please see the link.

See also Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 University of Nebraska Press 2004