Kevin P. Sweeney's In We Will Never Speak Of It

Improved Essays
In We Will Never Speak of It: Evidence of Hitler’s Direct Responsibility for the Premeditation and Implementation of the Nazi Final Solution, by Kevin P. Sweeney, there are many references throughout from people like Robert Lifton, writer of The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, and Helmut Krausnick, writer of Anatomy of the SS State. The article focuses on the “Intentionalist vs. Functionalist” debate that has raged since World War II. The Intentionalist view is that Hitler is directly responsible for Germany’s systematic attempt to annihilate the Jews of Europe, while the Functionalist view is that the idea of the Final Solution was thought up by many people throughout the Nazi regime.

In the article Rehearsing

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Jeff Bussey, the lead character from Harold Keith’s Rifles for Watie, can produce many different thoughts. Jeff is growing up in the Civil War. (Keith.) Not only is the boy growing up during this time, but he is also part of the action in the war, particularly in the Midwest (Keith.) Because of Jeff’s many different choices and actions, he had the greatest impact.…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Cruel Final Solution There was a conference that was known as Wannsee, that was held in Berlin, 1942. At the Wannsee conference, the SS, subdivisions, handled what was known as the Final Solution that targeted the Jews. The conference was brought up to light in the film Conspiracy, where the Final Solution was agreed upon Hitler’s fifteen men who debated the pros and cons of what was to be done to the Jews. In addition, the Final Solution determined what was going to happen to the Jews, but acts of violence targeted the Jews before the solution was determined. Although the Germans agreed to “evacuate” the Jews, there was one young Jew, Elie Wiesel, who tells his story of the horror Jews had to go through during the Holocaust.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A.Plan of Investigation (Word Count: 125) To what extent were German citizens responsible for what happened during the Holocaust? Although German citizens were somewhat aware of what Hitler was doing, they were not ultimately responsible for his actions. This paper will discuss how responsible German citizens were for the events of the Holocaust caused by Hitler. Primary and secondary sources will be used to view different ideas people had during the Holocaust, and ideas historians have now of the Holocaust.…

    • 1932 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The intentionalist camp of historians place Hitler at the very center of the Holocuaust, believing that it was based on the initial goals of Hitler. Right from the time when Hitler sat in Landsberg Prison, drafting his infamous autobiography, Mein Kampf, Hitler believed that the ultimate goal of his movement was to eradicate the Jews by means of genocide. One prominent intentionalist, Lucy Dawidowicz, declared that Hitler’s ideas for the Final Solution date back to his time spent in Pasewalk hospital in 1918. She also stated that in his unpublished second volume of Mein Kampf, that Hitler “openly espoused his program of annihilation, which was the blueprint for his policies enacted when he came to power.” Dawidowicz and Karl Bracher, believe…

    • 211 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Holocaust By Lucy Essay

    • 2562 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Did Hitler intend for this mass slaughter? Or was it a matter of “going with the flow”; of various sectors of the Nazi regime doing what made the best sense to themselves at the moment, without a larger set of directives? The functionalists and the intentionalists have taken their respective sides in…

    • 2562 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gerald Fleming’s Hitler and the Final Solution is an important and controversial book in the study of the Holocaust. Fleming takes an “ultra-intentionalist” position on the historiographical debate on the origins of the Final Solution and his work has contributed significantly to the ongoing study on the subject. In this book, Fleming makes an argument that is well supported by existing and new evidence that Hitler was directly involved in the implementation of the Final Solution. The initial incentive in writing Hitler and the Final Solution was to rebuff David Irving’s contention that Hitler was largely unaware of the Jewish extermination. Gerald Fleming was himself a German-Jew that had been raised and educated in England.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Self Concept Analysis of Greg Focker in Meet the Parents As human beings we base our own self concept on those around us. The company we keep is truly important because their positive and negative feedback onto to us can shape us as a person and determine on how we choose to act around them. In Meet the Parents, Greg Focker is a character that has a lot riding on this first impression with Pam’s parents. He desperately wants to marry Pam and with that comes asking for her father, Jack’s, permission.…

    • 1556 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Silence that Enriches Is it better for someone to stay silent and listen to the world, or let the world stay silent to listen to the person’s thoughts? Danny Saunders grows up in silence as the son of a Jewish Rabbi. The Chosen by Chaim Potok displays the growing friendship of two boys, who have singular views of their Jewish faith. An Orthodox Jew, Danny learns his beliefs from his father; Whereas Reuven, a Hasidic Jew carries different beliefs than that of his friend Danny. This can sometimes make it difficult for the friendship to grow.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    They also state that any existing documents were forged by those trying to get money out of the German government. Although there is a lack of direct record claiming that they took place in these crimes there is many indirect documentations suggesting the mass killing of Jews. (Rice, p.76) stated that “due to the lack of evidence from the time passed since the Holocaust it is hard for anyone, whether a historian or scientist, to tell when the first formal steps were taken for the beginning of the Final Solution.” Leader Heinrich…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hitler, the leader of the Holocaust and leader of Nazi Germany, executed six million innocent lives by the end of World War II alongside his Nazis by putting groups in concentration camps. This tragic genocide known as the Holocaust left a mark on society. During World War II, Hitler had a goal to exterminate all not fit for his likings aka Jews, gypsies, disabled and other groups looked down upon. This travesty involved torturing/experimenting on these groups until death in camps known as concentration camps. Consequently, this extermination of innocent groups has contributed to the idea that the Holocaust is a witch hunt.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Amid World War II, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party individuals attempted to execute each Jew in Europe. This happened all over Europe yet started in Germany. Hitler and the Nazis figured out how to murder 11 million - 14 million individuals. Among those individuals were 6 million Jews, this included 1.5 million kids also. In Germany, while the warriors were out battling wars, individuals in Germany encountered an alternate sort of danger.…

    • 2002 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Final Solution Dbq

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The architects of the “Final Solution” were Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. They constructed the outcome and result of this horrific event. B. The organization of the camp system was designed to carry out genocide across all Jews. They were starved,…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Holocaust, which was the systematic persecution and murder of over six million Jews during World War II, is often cited as one of the worst atrocities committed in the history of human civilization. People speak of it in hushed, mournful voices as they wonder at how the German Nazis could be so malevolent as to annihilate a whole generation of Jews. Hundreds of eminent scholars have eloquently explained the horrific nature of the Holocaust and its effects on the modern world (Gerstenfeld). Yet, it can be said that emphasis should be placed on understanding why Adolf Hitler decided to exterminate so many Jews. Only by looking through the perspective of the Nazis can one begin to understand that the Nazi Party and its leader, Hitler, brutally…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There has been historiographical debate about the origins of Anti-Semitism in Germany. Historians have formed two major divides between thoughts about the birth or development of Anti-Semitism. This has resulted in the formation of functionalist thought and intentionalist thought, these thoughts differ on theories. Functionalism from the term is an idea that is influenced by the surrounding environment or changes, and in this case, functionalism is the thought that the decision to murder the Jews was influenced by the war in that time and it also asserts that the idea of murder came from below (bureaucracy). On the other hand is intentionalism which means that an idea is shaped by someone’s personal traits.…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Holocaust Museum 's article on The Final Solution focuses on the formation of the plan and how it gradually lead to…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays