Hello there!
I am writing a paper for a history class, and would appreciate being pointed towards some appropriate sources for it. I chose my topic when I read an interesting blurb in a book, which essentially stated that a continued commitment to the "Final Solution" hurt the German war effort during the last couple years of the war. One of the examples given in the book is train use: trains which were badly needed to transport troops/materials to and from the front were instead used to transport people to the camps.
I am going to argue that maintaining/expanding the military-industrial complex from 1943-45 devoted to identifying, transporting, and killing vast numbers of individuals (Jews, Slavs, etc) was a poor use of limited resources, and they could have been better utilized for the war effort.
Lastly, is the above point even arguable? I don't mind doing a different one but this one really intrigues me.
Unfortunately this is homework help, or rather definitely sounds alot like it, and will be taken down more like than not.
However I'll provide an answer regardless if this stays up; as its a topic some of the kids I tutor have tried to tackle before; there's certainly a case for it. Consider the fact that the Nazi regime had to go out of its way to find a more efficient way to exterminate undesirables. In short it was always a strain on resources.
In Riding East: The SS Cavalry Brigade in Poland and Russia Yerger describes how Kompanies in the brigade often found themselves low on small arms ammunition for actual combat because of its vast expenditure in slaughtering villages and captured Partisans (in one macabre instance, a young Untersturmfuhrer being given an Iron Cross for using a train box to 'contain' captured partisans, who were promptly machinegunned). Couple this with the difficulty of getting supplies into the Prippet marshes, and in the instance of the SS-Kavalrie-Brigade, it certainly hampered their actual combat effectiveness. The entire fact that such formations existed for the express purposes of reprisal, extermination and counter insurgency actions is telling in and of itself.
To further that point; Einsatzgruppe - the death squads that rounded up and exterminated Jewish persons and "Communists" on the Ost Front - had such a high expenditure of ammunition that they frequently required Heer logistical or direct support to accomplish their goals. The leaders of the Einsatzgruppe themselves spoke of dealing with increasing 'combat fatigue' (the irony here is disgusting) and other cases of mental fraying over the repeated extermination of women and children. The inefficient and taxing methods employed by the Einsatzgruppe was a direct problem brought up in the meetings that eventually decided upon a gas-based, camp-centric extermination system.
Gassing of course had been conducted on a much smaller scale since the beginning of conflict, with 'Gas vans' and similar portable units, but at the time their impact was negligible. The majority of the killing in 1941 without a doubt was done with rifle and machinegun. The United States Holocaust Memorial Musem has student-friendly resources you may be interested in looking at. It rather quickly describes the escalation to mass, gas and camp based extermination.