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Historiography of the
Holocaust
Intentionalist
• Most intentionalist historians belong to a school of
thought known as the Sonderweg (‘special path’). They
argue that Germany’s fascination with
authoritarianism, military conquest, racial purity and
anti-Semitism pre-dated the Nazis by generations, back
to mid-1800s Prussia. These ideas and values not only
survived, they shaped the newly unified Germany and
contributed to the outbreak of World War I (1914),
post-war radical nationalism and the rise of Nazism.
According to Sonderweg historians, Nazism and the
Holocaust were not significant deviations from the
course of German history, they were its predictable end
points.
Structuralists
• Another group of historians, known as functionalists or
structuralists, support the ‘weakfuhrer theory’. Hitler’s power
over the Nazi Party, they argue, has been considerably overstated.
They contend that Hitler made decisions spontaneously,
haphazardly and unpredictably; he had few if any long term plans.
Sometimes Hitler acted to maintain his position at the helm of
the party, which was not as secure as is commonly believed. His
introduction of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, for example, was done
to appease hardcore anti-Semites in the NSDAP. From this theory
if follows that the Holocaust was the product of anti-Semitic
forces in the Nazi movement, as much as it was a manifestation
of Hitler’s personal will. Ian Kershaw, the leading functionalist
historian of recent times, has also claimed the existence of
a ‘Hitler myth’. Kershaw argues that the perception of Hitler as a
dominant, all-powerful leader, ruling both party and state with an
iron fist, was the product of Nazi propaganda rather than reality.
Key Nazis
Name
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
Responsibility
Minister of Propaganda, 1933–45
What happened to him
Died with his wife and family in the bunker
with Hitler in Berlin, 1 May 1945.
Hermann Goering (1893–1946)
Took action against Rohm in 1934, on the
Night of the Long Knives. In 1935, he became
responsible for the air force (luftwaffe). In
1936, he became responsible for the Four
Year Plan.
He was tried at the Nuremberg Trials and
found guilty, his punishment – hanging.
Committed suicide (took poison) whilst
waiting to be executed.
Heinrich Himmler (1900–45)
He was the head of the SS and was
responsible for implementing the Final
Solution, setting up extermination camps.
He was arrested on 23 May 1945. He
committed suicide.
Reinhard Heydrich (1904–42)
He was responsible for the Gestapo (secret He was killed in Prague in May 1942.
police, spies). In 1941, he became known for
his work organising the Final Solution.
Rudolf Hess (1894–1987)
Deputy leader of the Nazi Party
He was given a life sentence for war crimes.
Dr Robert Ley (1890–1945)
Head of the German Labour Front - he
established the Strength Through Joy
scheme.
Minister for rearmament and war production
in 1942
He committed suicide during the Nuremberg
Trials.
Head of the SA
He was killed on the Night of the Long
Knives.
Albert Speer (1905–81)
Ernst Rohm (1887–1934)
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for
crimes against peace and humanity.
Glossary
•
ANSCHLUSS German annexation of Austria on 13th March 1938.
•
‘ARYAN’ Term originally applied to speakers of Indo-European languages. The Nazis and other racists used it to describe people of white European origin, especially
northern Europeans.
•
AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU Concentration and extermination camp in the Polish town of Oświęcim. Created as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners in 1940, it
became an extermination camp in early 1942. Eventually, it consisted of three main sections: Auschwitz I, the concentration camp; Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an
extermination and slave labour camp; Auschwitz III (Monowitz), a slave labour camp. Auschwitz also had numerous sub-camps. More than 1.1 million people lost their
lives in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including approximately 1 million Jews, 75,000 Poles, 21,000 Sinti and Roma, and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
•
BABI YAR Ravine on the edge of Kiev in which 33,771 Jews were murdered on 29th-30th September 1941
•
BERGEN-BELSEN Concentration camp in north-western Germany, originally established in 1940 for prisoners of war. From 1943 so-called ‘privileged’ Jews, such as
holders of non-European passports, were sent to Belsen. Tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners were evacuated from Auschwitz and other camps to Belsen in 1944-45,
leading to catastrophic overcrowding, starvation and a typhus epidemic. An estimated 50,000 lost their lives, mainly in the very last months of the war.
•
CONCENTRATION CAMP Prison camp in which inmates were forced to undertake hard labour. The first Nazi concentration camps, with the exception of Dachau (created
March 1933), were generally small and temporary. From 1936 onwards larger camps such as Sachsenhausen (1936), Buchenwald (1937) and Mauthausen (1938) were
established, usually linked to economic enterprises run by the SS. Most inmates were political opponents of the Nazis or so-called ‘asocials’ (such as gay men, beggars
and habitual criminals). Although more than 30,000 Jews were held in camps after Kristallnacht in 1938, the concentration camps in Germany and Austria (unlike those in
Poland) had a limited role in the Holocaust until late 1944 when they began to receive tens of thousands of prisoners evacuated from the camps in the East. This led to
catastrophic conditions in which huge numbers of Jews and others died.
•
EICHMANN, ADOLF (1906-1962) SS and SD official who was instrumental in perpetrating the Holocaust by organising the deportation of Jews from across Europe to the
extermination camps. Escaped to Argentina after the war but was captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960. Tried and convicted in Jerusalem in 1961; executed in
1962.
•
EINSATZGRUPPEN Mobile SS killing squads made up of members of the Gestapo, criminal police and SD. During the invasion of Poland, Einsatzgruppen shot thousands of
members of the Polish elites and, in some cases, Jews. Larger units were formed for Operation Barbarossa and shot hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews in the course
of 1941. Similar massacres were also perpetrated by police battalions, other German units and local collaborators.
•
‘EUTHANASIA’ Term normally used to describe a painless, voluntary death for the terminally ill. The Nazis used the term for the programme of state-sponsored murder of
around 200,000 people with mental and physical disabilities in Germany and Austria: 70,000 were victims of the gas chambers of the T4 programme; others (including
disabled children) were killed through deliberate starvation or lethal injection. The Nazis also murdered an unknown number of disabled people in Poland during the war.
•
EXTERMINATION CAMP Nazi camp for the mass murder of Jews, primarily by poison gas. Four camps were created in Poland in 1941-42 which existed solely for the
murder of Jews: Bełżec, Chełmno, Sobibór and Treblinka. Almost every person brought to these camps was murdered immediately: only a small number of Jews from
each transport were selected to work in the camp (e.g. sorting the property of victims, disposing of the bodies) and most of them were soon murdered. In addition, the
already existing Auschwitz-Birkenau camp became an extermination camp in spring 1942. Because Birkenau was also a slave labour camp, larger numbers of Jews were
selected to work, giving them a slightly higher chance of survival. A number of other camps, notably Majdanek and Maly Trostenets, have sometimes also been described
as extermination camps.
•
GENOCIDE Term first coined in World War II by the lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction of a religious, racial, national or cultural
group.
•
GESTAPO Nazi secret police force created in 1933. Controlled by Himmler from 1934.
GHETTO Section of a town or city where Jews were forced to live. Ghettos had existed in many parts of Europe in the Medieval and the Early Modern periods. They were
revived by the Germans following the invasion of Poland: the first Nazi ghetto was created in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939. More ghettos were established in
1940 although widespread ghettoisation only began in 1941. Ghettos were also created in the Soviet Union from late 1941 onwards, usually for Jews of working age who
had survived the Einsatzgruppen massacres. Many, though not all, ghettos were ‘closed’: i.e., surrounded by walls with exit forbidden. Ghettos were characterised by
overcrowding, hunger, disease and exploitation for slave labour. All were eventually liquidated with the Jews deported to extermination camps or shot.
•
GOEBBELS, JOSEPH (1897-1945) Nazi Minister of Propaganda and leader of the Nazi Party in Berlin. Organised the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938 and was instrumental in
persuading Hitler to begin the deportation of German Jews to the East in September 1941. Committed suicide in Berlin in 1945.
•
GÖRING, HERMANN (1893-1946) Second most important man in the Nazi Party in the 1930s and the early stages of World War II although his influence later waned. Held
many offices including, from 1936, Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, making him virtual dictator of Germany’s economy. As such he was heavily involved in
economic measures against German Jews. In 1941, acting on Hitler’s behalf, he instructed Heydrich to prepare a ‘total solution to the Jewish question’. Captured at the
end of the war and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials; committed suicide the night before he was due to be hanged.
•
HEYDRICH, REINHARD (1904-1942) Head of the SD and later of the Gestapo and criminal police. As Himmler’s deputy, and also under orders from Hitler and Göring,
Heydrich oversaw the development of the ‘Final Solution’ in the key 1941-42 period and chaired the Wannsee Conference. In 1941 he was also appointed Protector of
Bohemia and Moravia. On 27th May 1942 he was shot in Prague by members of the Czech resistance and died on 4th June; Aktion Reinhard was named in his honour.
•
HIMMLER, HEINRICH (1900-1945) Leader of the SS and, from 1936, chief of all police forces in Germany. Himmler used his positions to control racial policy, especially
once war broke out. As a result, he worked closely with Hitler to take the decisions which led to the Holocaust, and the SS and police became the principal, though not
only, organisers of the murders. Committed suicide in 1945 after capture by the British.
•
HOESS, RUDOLF (1900-1947) Career SS officer who was appointed as first commandant of Auschwitz in May 1940. Hoess oversaw the camp’s expansion and its
development into an extermination camp. Transferred in late 1943, he returned to Auschwitz in spring 1944 to oversee the murder of the Jews of Hungary. Sentenced to
death by a Polish court in 1947 and subsequently hanged at Auschwitz.
•
HOLOCAUST Literally ‘completely burnt sacrifice’ (Greek). Term most commonly used to describe the mass murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their
collaborators. Although certain other groups were victims of Nazi persecution and genocide, only Jews were targeted for complete destruction. Thus, when used by
historians, the term refers specifically to the murder of Europe’s Jews rather than to Nazi persecution in general.
•
KRISTALLNACHT ‘Night of Broken Glass’ (German). Nationwide pogrom, organised by the Nazis, on the night of 9 th-10th November 1938 in which Jewish businesses and
homes were attacked and looted, synagogues burned, and 91 people killed. More than 30,000 Jews were held in concentration camps until they agreed to leave
Germany. The pretext for the pogrom was the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Jewish man whose parents had been deported by the Nazis; in
reality, a violent action against Jews had been planned for months.
•
SD SS intelligence agency, led by Heydrich.
•
SS Nazi Party organisation which was originally created as Hitler’s bodyguard. Under the leadership of Himmler, the SS grew to become a ‘state within a state’ which
controlled the concentration camps and racial policy, ran its own businesses and had its own armed forces.
•
TREBLINKA Extermination camp in the General Government region of Poland which operated between July 1942 and August 1943. At least 780,000 Jews were murdered
in Treblinka. On 2nd August 1943 the inmates revolted and several hundred escaped; around 60 survived the war.
Scale of Histories
• Intentionalist to Functionalist / Responsibility of
Hitler or others
Irving – no written order for
annihilation therefore Hitler can
have known nothing, if indeed
there was anything to know
Raul Hilberg – no written order
but such was unnecessary in
Third Reich which governed by
announcement. What existed
was a blanket mandate
(empowerment) to proceed.
The administrative machinery
then gathered momentum,
finding the shortest path to the
final goal.
Andreas Hillgruber
The Final Solution emerged out
of war against Russia. Hitler was
obsessed with destroying
Bolshevism and Bolshevism was,
in Hitler’s mind, inseparable
from international Judaism.
Gerald Fleming – unbroken
continuity of specific utterances
from early manifestations of
anti-semitism to liquidation
directly ordered during the war
Eberhard Jackel- No single
killing order. Extermination was
divided into several phases and
covered a wide variety of
methods and victims.
Michael Marrus - Hitler alone
defined the Jewish menace with
the authority, consistency and
ruthlessness needed to fix its
place for the Party and later the
Reich. ‘No Hitler, no Holocaust’.
Forster - “the war not only
opened up favourable
conditions for ideologically fixed
aims, but they themselves were
the reason for going to war”
Martin Broszat - Hitler was
obsessed with making the Reich
‘jew-free’ but had no clear
objective. Nazi officials hoped to
see the Jews pushed east.. Only
gradually, in 1942, did Himmler
and the SS establish the
coherent structures of the Final
Solution.
Uwe Dietrich Adam - There was
no course set from early on to
lead to European-wide
genocide, but Hitler issued an
order sometime between
September and November 1941
in response to the failure of the
Russia campaign and the need
to do something with the
surplus Jews in the East.
Hans Mommsen - Hitler issued
no order for the FS and had
nothing to do with its
implementation. He saw the
Jewish issue in propagandistic
generalisations rather than
concrete reality. The FS
therefore emerged out of the
chaotic competition for
advancement, which saw
conflicting authorities trying to
outmanoeuvre each other in
their ‘working towards the
Fuhrer’.
Lucy Dawidowicz - Hitler’s early
speeches indicate beyond doubt
his ultimate goals for the
destruction of the Jews. His
intention was always to use the
disorder of war as cover. The
war against Poland was twofold
– traditional war of conquest for
land and raw materials and the
ideological war against the
greatest enemy of the Reich: the
Jews.
1933
Jan. 30 Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany.
March 5 Reichstag election: "individual actions" against Jews.
April 1 Boycott against Jewish businesses, attorneys, and physicians
April 7 Law for the Reestablishment of the Civil Service results by summer 1933 in the firing of Jewish professors from universities.
April 11, 1933 - Nazis issue a decree defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent
or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan...especially if one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith."
May 10 Public burning of books by Jews, political opponents, and intellectual avant-garde.
Sept 29, 1933 - Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land.
Oct 4, 1933 - Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors.
1934
Jan 24, 1934 - Jews are banned from the German Labor Front.
May 17, 1934 - Jews not allowed national health insurance.
July 22, 1934 - Jews are prohibited from getting legal qualifications.
1935
May 21, 1935 - Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military.
June 26, 1935 - Nazis pass law allowing forced abortions on women to prevent them from passing on hereditary diseases.
Aug 6, 1935 - Nazis force Jewish performers/artists to join Jewish Cultural Unions.
Summer: "No Jews" signs and banners are placed with increasing frequency outside towns and cities, also outside shops, restaurants, and public
recreation facilities
Sept. 15: Reich Citizenship Law: Stripped Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens ” and “nationals.”
And
Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour: Prohibited marriages and extra-marital intercourse between “Jews ” (the name was now officially
used in place of “non-Aryans ”) and “Germans ” and also the employment of “German ” females under forty-five in Jewish households. However, Jews
retained the right to German passports.
1936
Aug. 1 Olympic Games open in Berlin: anti-Semitic signs are removed and homosexual bars closed until the games are over. Two weeks
before, Berlin and Prussian Roma and Sinti are arrested and sent to a special internment camp at Berlin-Marzahn.
1937
Jan - Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are
also denied tax reductions and child allowances.
June 12 "Race defilers" are to be sent to concentration camps after their prison terms are up according to a secret decree from Heydrich.
Nov 8, 1937 - 'Eternal Jew' travelling exhibition opens in Munich.
1938
Early 1938 Hitler declares he favours emigration
March 13 Anschluss (incorporation) of Austria into the German Reich
April 22, 1938 - Nazis prohibit Aryan 'front-ownership' of Jewish businesses.
April 26, 1938 - Nazis order Jews to register wealth and property.
June 14, 1938 - Nazis order Jewish owned businesses to register.
July 6 Evian conference, international conference to resolve immigration quotas for refugees from Hitler's Germany.
July 6, 1938 - Nazis prohibited Jews from trading and providing a variety of specified commercial services.
July 25, 1938 - Jewish doctors prohibited by law from practicing medicine.
Aug 11, 1938 - Nazis destroy the synagogue in Nuremberg.
Aug 17, 1938 - Nazis require Jewish women to add Sarah and men to add Israel to their names on all legal documents including passports.
Sept – Knauer case results in first euthanasia law regarding the mentally ill or handicapped– euthanasia at this stage just for children.
Oct 5, 1938 - Law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red "J."
Oct. 28-29 Expulsion of approximately 18,000 Polish stateless Jews from Germany.
Nov 6 Herschel Grynszpan shoots German embassy employee Ernst vom Rath in Paris.
Resulting in:
Nov. 9 Kristallnacht (Pogrom of November 1938): state organized pogrom against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland results in
the burning of synagogues as well as vandalism and looting of Jewish businesses and homes. Approximately 28,000 German and Austrian
Jewish men deported to concentration camps.
Nov 12, 1938 - Nazis fine Jews one billion marks for damages related to Kristallnacht.
Nov. 15 Jewish children expelled from public schools; segregated Jewish schools are created
Nov. 28 Restrictions on free choice of residence for Jews.
Dec. 3 Law passed enforcing compulsory "Aryanization" of Jewish firms and businesses
Dec 14, 1938 - Hermann Göring takes charge of resolving the "Jewish Question" (remember he is in charge of the 4 year plan to get the German economy
ready for war – what would you expect to happen now?)
1939
Jan. 17 Loss of tenant protection for Jews.
Jan. 30 Hitler's Reichstag speech predicts the "destruction of the Jewish race in Europe."
Sept. 1 German invasion of Poland
Sept. 21 Heydrich orders the creation of ghettos in occupied Poland under the administration of
"Jewish councils."
September-December: Polish Jews from areas annexed to Germany expelled to central Poland e.g Oct. 12 First deportation of Jews from Austria and
Moravia to Poland.
October 1939 - First adult euthanasia cases in Germany – Operation T4
Nov. 23 Introduction of Jewish star throughout occupied Poland (the Generalgouvernement).
Nov. 28 Hans Frank orders the creation of Jewish councils in central Poland and establishes the first ghetto at Piotrkow.
1940
Feb. 10 Start of deportations from Pomerania to Lublin (Poland).
March 1940 – Madagascar plan suggested
April 9 German invasion of Denmark and Norway.
April 27 Himmler orders the start of construction of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
April 30 First major ghetto created in Lodz.
May 10 German invasion of Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
Oct. 3 Anti-Semitic decrees promulgated in Vichy, France.
Oct. 16 Order given to create a ghetto in Warsaw.
Nov. 15 Warsaw ghetto is sealed.
1941
Feb. 25 Strikes against anti-Jewish measures in many Dutch cities.
March 1941 – Lublin resettlement postponed in preparation for invasion of USSR
March - German Jews used as forced laborers.
June 22 1941 – Germany invades USSR – Operation Barbarossa
End May Creation of Einsatzgruppen [Operation Groups]
June 22 German invasion of the Soviet Union.
July 31 Göring charges Heydrich with to formulate a "comprehensive solution to the Jewish problem."
August 1941 – Voluntary emigration of German Jews forbidden
Sept. 1 Introduction of the Jewish star in the German Reich for all Jews above the age of six
Sept. 3 First gassings at Auschwitz – Soviet POW
September 29-30 - Mass murder of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev
Oct. 14 First deportation of German Jews to Lodz.
Dec. 8 Chelmno killing center begins operation; massacre in Riga.
1942
Jan. 20 Wannsee Conference: senior German government officials meet in suburban Berlin to discuss the details and logistics of their plan to carry out
the "final solution" to kill all Jews in Europe.
Jan. 31 Einsatzgruppe [Operation Group] A reports about the murder of 229,052 Jews in the
Baltic.
Jan/Feb – first Jews gassed at Auschwitz
March 1 Sobibor killing center begins operation.
March 16 Belzec killing center begins operation.
May 1942 – Heydrich killed by Czech partisans
June 1 Treblinka killing center begins operation.
July - Start of deportations of Dutch - French Jews to Auschwitz;
July 22 Beginning of mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to Belzec and Treblinka.
July 28 Creation of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in the Warsaw ghetto.
Sept. 16 First mass "resettlement" from the Lodz ghetto resulting in 55,000 deaths.
Dec 1942 – most Polish Jews dead. Belzec closed, other camps slowed- according to Farmer. Most camps closed by mid-1943. Auschwitz main killing
centre for rest of Europe’s Jews
Dec 1942 Himmler signed order to deport German Gypsies to Auschwitz
1943
Jan. 18 Beginning of resistance against deportations from the Warsaw ghetto.
March 15 - Start of deportations of Greek Jews to Auschwitz
April 19 Warsaw ghetto revolt begins.
May 16 Liquidation and destruction of the Warsaw ghetto.
June 11 Himmler's order to liquidate the Polish ghettos.
June 26 Himmler's order to liquidate ghettos on occupied Soviet territory.
August 2- Revolt at Treblinka
Oct. 2 Rescue of 7,000 Danish Jews by the Danish resistance; 475 Jews captured by Germans.
1944
Spring – Vrba Wetzler report reaches west – ARGUABLY first confirmation of systematic genocide of Jews by Nazis
May 15 Beginning of deportation of Hungarian Jews; by 8 July 1944, about 476,000 deported
to Auschwitz.
June 6 – D-Day Landings in Normandy
July 24 The Majdanek killing center is liberated by Soviet troops; between 50,000 and 60,000
Jews were murdered there.
August The last ghetto, Lodz, liquidated
27 November– Himmler ordered annihilation to stop.
Nov. 26 Himmler orders the destruction of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
1945
Jan. 17 Beginning of the Auschwitz death marches.
17 January 1945 – last roll call at Auschwitz
Jan. 27 Auschwitz liberated by Soviet troops.
April 11 Buchenwald liberated by US troops.
April 15 Bergen-Belsen liberated by British and Canadian troops.
April 30 Hitler commits suicide.
May 8 Germany surrenders unconditionally.
May 10 Theresienstadt is liberated.
May 23 Himmler commits suicide.
Nov. 22 Beginning of the Nuremberg trials.
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