Lecture 6: The Second World War and the Holocaust: a new perspective

Question 1

Second World War and the Holocaust:

Answer 1

• Second World War and the Holocaust in the past were two different stories
• History of German antisemitism embedded narrative
• History of Holocaust now makes broad references to WW2
• Social historians and a historian of Jewish history may take a different approach
• Holocaust historians – may focus on the stages that led to the Holocaust
• More than 50 million people were killed in WW2
• Total War – transformation taken to a different level, most people killed in the war were civilians
• Amongst civilians many Jews were victims –

Question 2

Population and the state –

Answer 2

• Until French Revolution monarch was seen to be granted by God – monarchs = defenders of faith and representatives of God, this changed following the French revolution – monarchs = will of the people
• Suspicions that ethnic minorities, religions and race contrasting to the traditions were a risk to the state
• Pressure for homogenisation – ethnic cleansing, forced assimilation and mass murder – Holocaust was one, if the most extreme

Question 3

Break-up of the Ottoman Empire – started in the 19th C

Answer 3

• Multinational empire into homogenised independent states e.g. formation of Greece, Serbia
• For the first-time people and the state were put together and Greece was seen as the place for the Greek people = state for a people
• States signed documents that protected minorities e.g. the Berlin Congress – granted religious freedom for emerging Balkan states
• Continuous period of fighting – all about defending the state – people targeted for what they were

Question 4

Thirty Years War – 1914 to 1945

Answer 4

• Period of continuous violence – Eastern countries such as Poland were subjected to many uprisings following WW1 and continued into the 1930s. All these wars were shaped by drive for homogenisation.
• Started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in June 1914 – conducted by nationalist Serbians. Visited occupied state on a particularly important day for Serbian national history as it was an anniversary of a battle lost by the Ottoman Empire. Serbians believed that it should be their territory.

Question 5

National Tensions throughout Europe:

Answer 5

• One of national tensions throughout Europe – Poland, new Polish kingdom if Poles fought on German side
• Lord Rothschild – UK in anti-Semitic vein decided to bring Jews on their side by promising them homeland. Yet, Britain also promised Palestine to the Arabs.
• Woodrow Wilsons 14 points – readjustment of Italy, “recognisable lines of nationality”, “historically established lines of allegiance and nationality”, “include territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations”

Question 6

Creating nations states and addressing minorities:

Answer 6

• Attempt to eliminate minorities by creating new states failed – 35 million in Europe declared themselves to be part of a minority.
• Establishing nation state and force state to sign a minority treatment. This created violence right from the start.
• States resented the minority treaties – why did new states in East have to sign it not the Western states – yet it was argued only immature states had to sign it
• Treaties resented by minorities as the treaties did not go far enough
• Western European states who acted as guarantors were not prepared to step in if new nations refused to sign their treaties
• Construct of minority treatments broke down in 1933 when Hitler came to power
• Until a general system of minority rights are introduced across the whole of Europe they would respect their minority treaties

Question 7

Germany should live under German control:

Answer 7

• Aggression abroad = Austria is German speaking
• Lebensraum = unite all Germans under German rule
• Most important task for reorganising Europe = “to establish a new order of ethnographic conditions, that is to say, resettlement of nationalities”
• General Plan East = end of 1942 – Crimea in South to Leningrad in North was seen to be eliminated and then a vast number of German settlers were to move in – about exchanging this population – logic rational behind murders as wanted to space

Question 8

Germany at home:

Answer 8

• Put pressure on Jews to emigrate
• Conference of Evian = June 1938 – American government tried to convince other state to take in Jews – lessen the friction and prevent the refugee problem from de-stabling Europe
• Many nations did not want to take in Jews

Question 9

America:

Answer 9

• Wanted to establish a new global order
• Excluding mass murder –
• Started with presumption they would win the war – wanted to ensure no third world war – create nation states that are true nation states and eradicate the minorities
• Agreed that they were not going back to the Versailles agreement – wanted to solve the problems that led to the war
• Came up with the ideas of expulsions and deportations – many were expelled after the war – the largest number being Germans “transfer to Germany of Poland…”
• Immigration – Jewish displaced persons could not be transferred within Europe, many moved to Palestine, largest minorities of interwar period Jews and Germans had largely disappeared
• Emigration organised by ICEM – emigrated around 3 million people in the interwar period

Question 10

Conclusion:

Answer 10

Drive for aligning territory, people and state led to violence –
Holocaust most serious and destructive –
dynamics did not end after the period of 1945 – conflicts in Europe de-escalated –
break up of Yugoslavia in 1990 = re-emergence

Question 11

What is the Holocaust?

Answer 11

• Mass murder of Jews (one of the Primary targets), and other minorities in society such as Soviet Prisoners of War, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally or physically didn’t fit the image of the ideal Nazi
• 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, roughly 3 million killed in the death camps
• War of extermination

Question 12

Main Events:

Answer 12

• Relocated to camps:
• extermination camps – to kill, factories of death, six death camps in which people were killed
• labour camps – forced work, death from labour – tool of the Nazis to kill through labour
• General Plan East = plan for ethnic cleansing across the East – deportations of those that failed to conform to Germination, change the entire landscape of Eastern Europe

Question 13

Significance of the Holocaust: what makes it unique?

Answer 13

• Industrial killing not seen on this scale before
• Germanification of Europe
• Brutal actions of not just the hierarchy of Germany but all ordinary members of society
• Society were aware that it was taken place and were largely accepting
• Killing not seen in this scale before in Europe
• Form of ethnic cleansing
• Hitler’s aim – wanted lebensraum for the German people

Question 14

How is the Holocaust linked to the war?

Answer 14

• Hitler’s goal = to create an Arian race – viewed this as the superior race
• Camps set up outside of Germany
• Death squads – set up to kill entire communities