The Final Solution Ever since the world has become aware of the Holocaust on the Jews, many historians have debated back and forth of who caused this, why this had happened, and when it was decided. Although the popular opinion is to put all of the blame on Hitler because he was the complete ruler at the time, but through more research there are other debates spoken about and other ideas became even more popular. Two of the more popular schools of thought are functionalism and intentionalism. Functionalism is the idea you don’t blame Hitler and think that he planned to kill the Jews from the start, but you think that it was just the result of the failure of trying to get rid of the Jews. Intentionalism is when the historians think Hitler …show more content…
Richard Breitman, born in 1947, is and American historian that gained his reputation for his study on the holocaust. He received his Master’s degree and his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University along with his PhD for the University of Harvard. He now works as a professor at the American University of Washington D.C. According to Breitman Hitler and Himmler made a decision to kill the Jews in late 1940. A Historian, Henry Friedlander, argued, that before the war in 1939 when the SS had been targeting the handicapped, The killings of them were used as a copy for the Final Solution of the Jews. December 18, 1940 Hitler officially declared Operation Barbarossa, the campaign to demolish the Soviet Union. His plan to wipe out the Jews was equally as long. Breitman finds that figuring out what the SS has planned at the end of 1940 and the beginning of 1941, will bring to Hitler’s idea to killing the Jews. In March 1941, during the meeting at the Propaganda Ministry about making the Jews get out of Berlin, Eichmann proclaimed that the Fuhrer assigned Heydrich to murder the …show more content…
He was born in 1958, was born in England and does most of work his on the Germans and the Jewish people. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Christs College, his Masters from Cambridge University, and his PhD from the University of Warwick. He now works as a professor at the University of Southampton. Roseman doesn’t use the Functionalist approach or the intentionalist approach, he had decided to stay neutral. On the one hand, he implies that Hitler’s key motive behind the mass murders had been belief. But then again he also implies that the people who had attended the conference at Wansee were mostly young followers of the Nazi ways. The conference was led by Heydrich in January, 1942. Heydrich had become very powerful and even sought out to become even