THE HOLOCAUST

1
THE HOLOCAUST

• THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL DEBATES

2
INTRODUCTION

• Definition of the Holocaust.
• Terms Final Solution, Holocaust, Shoah
• Other groups targeted.
• Accepted that 6,000,000 Jews died.
• Role of historians.
• Holocaust denial.

3
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS ADOLF HITLER TO BLAME?

• Intentionalist view
• All-powerful dictatorship where Hitlers will led
  to actions.
• All policies underpinned by racial ideology.
• Lucy Dawidowicz.
• Straight road to Auschwitz.

4

• Functionalist/Structuralist view
• Hitler not all-powerful.
• Drifted into the Holocaust.
• Stresses the role of others (eg Himmler,
  Goering).
• Hans Mommsen, Martin Broszat.
• Twisted road to Auschwitz.

5

• Recent research
• Functionalists underestimate the motive force and
  ideological climate which lay behind the
  Holocaust Hitler provided this.
• Lack of written orders clouds things. (Irving
  uses this as evidence that Hitler did not know.)

6
HOW RESPONSIBLE WERE HIMMLER, HEYDRICH AND THE SS?

• Himmler was the architect of genocide
• He led the SS.
• He delegated much to Heydrich.
• All heavily involved.
• BUT! Have they become scapegoats to shift the
  blame from others?

7
WHAT WAS THE EXTENT OF THE EUTHANASIA CONNECTION?

• A separate issue to be considered apart from the
  Holocaust?
• Or the first chapter of the Holocaust? (Henry
  Friedlander, Michael Burleigh)

8
HOW GUILTY WAS THE GERMAN ARMY?

• Early claims that the Wehrmacht was untainted and
  not involved.
• Recent research contradicts this (Christian
  Streit, Jurgen Forster)

9
TO WHAT EXTENT WERE THE GERMAN PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE?

• Holocaust implemented in secrecy.
• BUT! People must have known. Recent research
  suggests that many were involved and many more
  supported it (Daniel Goldhagen, Raul Hilberg.)

10
WAS EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM TO BLAME?

• Long evident in Europe.
• Other nations were also willing executioners.

11
DID JEWS COLLABORATE IN THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION?

• Did leaders help by complying with Nazi demands?
  (Hannah Arendt, Raul Hilberg.)
• Rejected by others Jewish leaders were in an
  impossible position (Isaiah Trunk.)

12
TO WHAT EXTENT WERE BRITAIN, AMERICA AND THE
PAPACY TO BLAME?

• USA GB complicit? Harsh immigration policies,
  Churchill and FDR should have done more (Arthur
  Morse, David Wyman.)
• Not complicit they didnt know in the 1930s,
  during the war little could be done, the war had
  to be won before there could be help (William
  Rubenstein.)
• Silence of Pope Pius XII.