Historians - The Holocaust

Question 1

Weizsacker - 1950

Answer 1

Intentionalist

• the Holocaust must be separated from other examples of genocide
• Portrays Hitler as a deceptive man who had the sole purpose of destroying the Jews

Question 2

Hillgruber - 1975

Answer 2

Intentionalist
- he argues that Hitler saw Operation Barbarossa and the quest of lebensraum as a solution to the Jewish question through systematic murder

Question 3

Davidowicz - 1975

Answer 3

Extreme Intentionalist

• she sees the whole German people as perpetrators
• The War Against the Jews (1975) - she argued that the Final Solution was Hitler’s intention from the beginning - 1920
• She disagrees with the idea that Jewish resistance would have saved the Jews from the Holocaust

Question 4

Fleming - 1984

Answer 4

Intentionalist

• ‘unbroken continuity of specific utterances…a single, unbroken and fatal continuum’
• the intention of the Final Solution had been planned since the 1920s

Question 5

Marrus - 1990

Answer 5

Intentionalist

• ‘No Hitler, no Holocaust’ - acknowledges the role of Hitler
• ‘Hitler alone defined the Jewish menace’

Question 6

Goldhagen

Hitler’s Willing Executioners - 1996

Answer 6

Extreme Intentionalist

• popuar opinion in Germany was sympathetic to a policy of Jewish persecution
• Hitler’s importance - Hitler was the reason why persecution culminated in genocide
• He claims that Germany welcomed enthusiastically the persecution of Jews

Question 7

Breitman - 1991

Answer 7

Moderate Intentionalist

• considers the roles of Himmler, Heydrich and the SS
• he claims that it is incorrect to look at evidence such as Hitler’s speeches to assume Hitler’s intentions
• Breitman consideres Himmler to be the ‘Architect of Genocide’

Question 8

Robert Koehl - 1959

Answer 8

Structuralist

• He compares the Third Reich with a medieval struggle
• Hitler’s men, with complete control over their domains competed against each other for favour - in agreement with Kershaw

Question 9

Hans Mommsen - 1966

Answer 9

Structuralist

• he sees the Holocaust as the outcome of cumulative radicalisation in the context of a disorganised regime
• unplanned and largely uncoordinated stages of the process
• He argues that in 1933, Hitler did not perceive any other solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ than forced emigration
• He sees Hitler as a ‘weak dictator’

Question 10

Karl Schleunes - 1970

Answer 10

Structuralist

• ‘The twisted road to Auschwitz’
• He considers the importance of Hitler: clear policy was impossible without the sanction of Hitler
• Unorganised and chaotic regime - trial and error approach - ‘one piece of legislation after another’

Question 11

Martin Broszat - 1985

Answer 11

Structuralist

• He claims that in the early years of the NSDAP Hitler avoided giving a definition for Nazi ideology as he considered the most pressing aims of the Third Reich as they came - disorganised state
• the extermination of the Jews was an ‘outcome of an anti-Semitism which had once served as a popular propaganda device’

Question 12

Christopher Browning - 1992

Answer 12

Moderate Functionalist

• no preordained plan
• Browning sees Hitler at the centre of the decision-making process so he considers his importance
• Agrees with cumulative radicalisation
• Policies were linked to military victories - when Germany was winning, Hitler radicalised his policies and led the Jews to genocide
• The turning point was the invasion of the USSR in June, 1941

Question 13

Timothy Mason - 1995

Answer 13

Functionalist
- He considers other factors as essential in the development of the Holocaust, such as the economic situation of Germany in the 1930s.

Question 14

Ian Kershaw

Answer 14

Synthesis

• Structuralist: ‘chaotic’; ‘competing’ structures of the Nazi State: ‘unstable coalition’ - in agreement with Broszat and Mommsen - agrees with ‘cumulative radicalization’
• Kershaw came up with the: “Working towards the Fuhrer” theory - he leaves the state to run itself according to his perceived wishes
• Kershaw sees the Holocaust as a “process caused by the cumulative radicalization” but agrees “improvised genocide” emerged after 1941 (with Operation Barbarossa)

Question 15

Hannah Arendt

Answer 15

Jewish Response

• She charged blame on the Jewish leaders who helped the process of destruction by complying with Nazi orders to supply names and groups of Jews for transportation to the death camps.
• ‘The role of these leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story.’

Question 16

Raul Hilberg

Answer 16

Jewish Response

• Hilberg blames the Jews and especially Jewish leaders for not resisting the Nazis more.
• In his views, the fact that Jews tried to avoid provocation and usually complied with Nazi decrees helped seal their fate.
• Hilberg believed that the Holocaust should not be seen in isolation, either from other wartime events or from other acts of genocide.

Question 17

Isaiah Trunk

Answer 17

Jewish Response

• Trunk focuses his analysis on the dilemma confronting Jewish leaders in the Polish ghettos
• He concludes that the Jews were in an impossible position. Having little option but to obey Nazi commands, they did their best to protect their communities.