Holocaust And Society Essay, Research Paper

Most of the world will no longer deny the mass murder of millions of Jews during World War II (1939-1945). The Holocaust is not a secret anymore. But was the Holocaust the brainchild of a deviant individual or was it an event that came only out of “necessity”? Was the Shoah intentional or was it functional? Or will we ever know for sure? The answer to that question is no, at least not presently.

Historians searching for answers to the question of how the murder of a nation came about are often led into a dead end. Why? Because there is not a single document to be found affirming that genocide of the Jews was the original plan. What documents can be located are filled with ambiguities and illusive language. The Jews were often referred to as the “Jewish problem” or the “Jewish Question” and to solve this the Germans concocted the “Final Solution”. What exactly did the Final Solution entail? Perhaps the world will never know. The only thing for certain is that over ten million Jews were exterminated starting as early as the 1930’s.

There are two fundamental arguments for how the Holocaust was put into play: intentionalism and fundamentalism. Intentionalists argue that the extermination of the Jews was the plan of Hitler from the very start of his dictatorship and his annexation of Europe. Fundamentalists argue that, though a figurehead, Hitler was not directly responsible for the mass killings that occurred during the course of World War II. Instead, they believe that a series of events led to the decision of mass extermination. But as different as these explanations for the actions of the Nazis are, there a few things that are undisputable.

Yes, the Nazis systematically murdered millions of people driven by an ideology of a supreme human race, an Aryan nation. An Aryan, described in Adolf Hitler’s infamous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), being a blond hair, blue-eyed German, was the master race. And yes, there were death camps built specifically constructed to kill and dispose of the unwanted, the useless. Yes, the Nazis were extreme anti-Semitic propagandists. But what divides the functionalists from the intentionalists are the interpretations of three major points: (1) How one chooses to judge Hitler, (2) The time span between March of 1941 and the following autumn, (3) How one follows the rhetoric of the Nazi party.

First, one must take a close look at the leader of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler. He became chancellor in 1933 and Fuhrer in 1934, but his anti-Semitic propaganda began long before then. The Nazi campaign against the Jews started as early as 1929. There is no argument that Hitler hated and blamed the Jewish people for Germany’s economic downfall following World War I; he even went so far as to blame them for the loss of the war itself. According to intentionalists “Hitler is seen as the driving force of Nazi anti-Semitic policy…” (Marrus, 35).

Intentionalist Lucy Dawidowicz argues that starting with Hitler’s attack on Poland in September 1939, he used the war to create confusion, to cover up his intentions of mass murder (Marrus, 35).

Hitler ran the Third Reich through verbal orders, rarely communicating with underlings, rather than official documentation. Raul Hilberg refers to this as “government by announcement” (Marrus, 34). Hitler’s obsession with Jewish genocide became clearer as his plan to overthrow Russia evolved (Krausnick, Marrus, 34). Helmut Krausnick claims, “It could not have been later than March 1941, when he openly declared his intention…he issued his secret decree-which never appeared in writing though it was mentioned verbally on several occasions-that the Jews should be eliminated.”

Functionalists argue that the Third Reich was a constant power struggle between individuals and political groups. They portray Hitler to be an uninvolved, often unattainable leader that intervened sporadically and unpredictably. He was irrational, no doubt, but was he capable of making and executing plans to wipe out an entire race? Some think that the killings started because of the competition of rival [Nazi] groups to impress their Fuhrer, while Hitler remained in the background having little to no knowledge or involvement. But to form such an effective operation would require planning and cooperation. As Marrus puts it, “ Nazi genocide was truly a monumental task, requiring great exertion throughout the whole German empire, bureaucratic ingenuity, countless administrative decisions, the continuous cooperation of widely diverse agencies, and many thousands of officials.” (Marrus, 48-9)

While intentionalists present the Nazis as a carefully formed killing machine, functionalists tend to see them as unorganized and chaotic. For instance, Jews were contained in ghettos around 1939. Conditions were completely unlivable. Disease and starvation were a part of everyday life. They were used as slave labor for the Nazi war cause, a preview of what was to come. After conquering Russia, there were new arrivals daily into an already overcrowded area. The number of Jews in Poland was becoming overwhelming, therefore the Nazis came up with a solution: mass extermination. Yet, it was years before they perfected efficient means to do so.

And the most obvious reason indicating functionalism: there is no document in existence signed by Hitler ordering the murder of the Jews. Yet there are many documents that allude to the idea. In Himmler’s memorandum to Hitler on May 25,1940 he says things such as “…we want to dissolve them…” and “…carry out the racial sifting which must be the basis for our considerations…” and even more disturbing, “I hope the concept of Jews will be extinguished…” (Bauer, 352-3).

Intentionalists rely heavily on the interpretation and ideology of the Third Reich, more specifically Hitler. He was indisputably anti-Semitic and quite vocal of with his opinions and beliefs. Many people view Hitler as prophetic, as seen in his speech to the Reichstag in January 1930 predicting “…the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” He managed to convince an entire country to turn on each other. Hitler led his people. It seems virtually impossible that the mass murder of so many could have occurred without some sort of agreement or order by the Fuhrer, whether written or otherwise.

The disagreement comes when debating when the plan actually came about. Intentionalists believe the Nazis had mass extermination in mind as early as March 1941. Functionalists are divided: some claim the Nazis had it planned by the summer of 1941 because of recent success in Russia, while others push it further until the autumn arising from disappointment in Russia (Marrus, 45). The time span, though small, makes all the difference. Did the Holocaust begin because of feelings over Russia or was it planned even before then?

I find intentionalism to be a more convincing argument. This is for many reasons. Why would Hitler order “voluntary” sterilization if he wanted the Jewish race to continue? And even though I do believe that Hitler was irrational and spontaneous, I find the Holocaust to be meticulously planned and carried out. The killings were too intricate. I also do not believe that it is an accident that there is no written documentation of Hitler’s direct orders. I think he planned that carefully. And keep in mind that most of the Nazi archives were destroyed. But I do not think that Hitler acted alone by any means.

If someone were to ask me if I thought the Shoah occurred simply because a turn of events, I would have to disagree. I think the Nazi party planned it all along. They were just waiting for the right moment to implement the “Final Solution”. Before they could carry out the murder of a people, they first had to make sure they had total control of their own. The Nazi party needed time to carefully strengthen their hold on Germany’s people. It takes quite a bit of power and planning to convince a country to support genocide. That is not something that just happens; it is a seed planted in one’s head that grows and grows. Before Germany knew it, they were active anti-Semites too.

But I do question whether or not Germany really wanted to kill Jews altogether or simply rid their country of them. The Madagascar plan for instance, planned for the deportation of the Polish and German Jews to Madagascar. There were two big problems with the plan: (1) the island was not a conquered German territory, and (2) the sudden influx of Russian Jews from conquered territories. I think that there were several solutions to the Jewish problem before the Nazis settled on murder, but nonetheless there was still the intent to kill.

I personally found Raul Hilberg’s argument to be the most intriguing. He argument is both fundamental and intentional. He states the destruction of the Jews were in stages, “sequential steps that were taken at the initiative of countless decision makers in a few flung bureaucratic machine.” (Marrus, 48). Marrus points these stages or steps out, “First came the definition of the Jews, then their expropriation, concentration, deportation, and finally their murder.” (Marrus, 48). These steps follow a logical order and can be traced through events: the Nuremberg laws, Kristalnacht, ghettoization, deportation to the camps, and either gassing or working the Jews to death. It’s all so basic. Hilberg used fundamentalist principles in the intentionalist argument. He refers to the Third Reich as a “machinery of destruction”, and it was.

The euthanasia program is another example of Hitler’s plan. The euthanasia, or the mercy killings, was to kill the mentally or terminally ill. Hitler went into great detail of who was useful and who was disposable. He intended to create a perfect race. He was willing to kill those he judged as unworthy of life. The mercy killings were justified as necessary to cleanse Germany of the impure. He wanted to fill the country with a supreme and master race. Hitler believed the Jews to be the bottom of the barrel. If he were willing to kill non-Jews then why would he think twice about murdering those even lower than that?

There are millions of explanations for the events occurring before and after World War II. The question is no longer why, but how? How did the world’s greatest tragedy come about? Maybe it is better not to know. Maybe it is safer to believe that the Shoah was simply the act of a madman because the thought that it could happen purely out of circumstance is too scary. To think that humanity is still capable of such an atrocity today is repulsive.

But we will never really know how the Holocaust happened. The lack of documentation will leave the how an open ended question. Most of the Nazi archives were destroyed and what is left is masked in illusive language and innuendoes. It is quite possible that even Hitler himself did not know how the Shoah came about. He may have never even been involved with the planning of mass murder. Then again he could have been the mastermind behind it all. Even if he was, how did he get so many ordinary people to carry out such a horrendous duty? There are so many questions and so few answers. After all the reading and research I have done, I find myself more confused now then I was in the beginning. I think in the end, no one is right and no one is wrong because trying to read the human mind will lead to a dead end.

1. Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. Danbury, CT: Franklin Watts, 1976.

2. Marrus, Michael. The Holocaust in History. London: Penguin, 1987.