Nazi intent...
There is a large adherence to something akin to Holocaust Denial and it shows up in that most democratic of places: Wikipedia. The general direction of these people: a) the Holocaust was not as extensive as people say--no where near the numbers attributed; b) others died in the camps, not just Jews; c) the extermination of the Jews was a result of Nazi fanatics who strayed from Nazi mainstream ideology; d) Hitler did not personally order extermination of the Jews and knew nothing of this. Or there are variations of that thinking.
Holocaust Deniers are a lunatic fringe to reality. It doesn't matter what any one could or would say, they are not going to be moved toward recognition of the reality of the Holocaust.
My interpretation of the events comes mainly from Miss Leni Yahil's THE HOLOCAUST: THE FATE OF EUROPEAN JEWRY, 1932-1945, a masterful and thorough examination of the topic. I include these thoughts in the film SOPHIE'S CHOICE because it is probably the best (and most viewed) film re the Holocaust and because it is based on the excellent Wiliam Styron novel of the same name. Styron explores themes in great detail what the film glosses over.
Hitler spoke before the Reichstag in January 30, 1939. He prophecied: the annihilation--Vernichtung--of the Jewish race in Europe! It is unfortunate that the speeches of Hitler are not always presented in English and German in order to see that the English word translates correctly the German intent. What word did he acutally use in this speech for the English 'exterminate'? He used the word 'Vernichtung' which means: destroy, exterminate, annihilate. So there is no misinterpretation of Hitler's intent. This 1939 speech was a reiteration of one he made 10 years previous.
The next point to make. The Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1941 simply reiterated what the Nazi State was already doing. The Wannsee Conference was held at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. It was attended by 15 of the Nazi High Command. The phrase occurs deliberately: The final solution of the Jewish Problem and that is understood as code for extermination either by being worked to death or being murdered.
Third--the construction of the gas chambers at the five factories of death: Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdenek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka were created because there was no sufficient way to get rid of dead corpses from the previous procedure of shooting people to fall into pits; the graves would heave for several days with rotting corpses. The gas chambers were deliberatly created to make killing efficient, the crematoria were created for destruction of evidence. The Einsatzgruppen were originally assigned to do the killing--by shooting people in the head in cold blood--but such a procedure took a toll on the perpetrators; they simply could not sustain the coldbloodedness required, driving many to a point of madness.
And finally at the end of the war, there was every attempt from the Nazis to obliterate the evidence of their evil deed. All of this strongly indicates both indirectly and directly, that Hitler knew what was happening, that the Nazi party was realizing Hitler's stated goal of 'Vernichtung/extermination' of the Jews.
I suppose most people will not fall for wacko revisionists who make absurd claims about reality of the Holocaust. But it is important, to assert at some point, as precisely as possible, as briefly as possible, the evidence confirming Nazi intent and Nazi realization of Hitler's stated goal.