Ilana Steinmetz
Historiography Paper
Mr. Deutsch
When did the Nazis decide to commit genocide against the Jews and what influenced their decision?
Hitler’s Nazi regime exterminated 6,000,000 Jews with unending effort until the close of the war. The execution of this mass murder required enormous manpower and large bureaucracies. However, was the idea of the Final Solution always envisioned? A major debate amongst historians was raised. 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 this debate. The former argues that the Holocaust emerged as a matter of functionality, meaning it was merely thought up as a short term plan and not a long intended scheme. The latter asserts that there was a plan, and Hitler aimed for the eradication of the Jews from the dawn of Nazi power. Their dispute focuses on two central issues: whether Hitler gave the order for the Holocaust and was fully aware of what was going on, and whether or not the German bureaucracy was acting in a premeditated and coordinated fashion. The main debate between functionalists and intentionalists erupts among German historians in the 1970’s, although similar debates take place between Jewish historians such as Raul Hilberg and Lucy Dawidowicz. In this paper we will be considering the four viewpoints from the following historians: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Raul Hilberg, Christopher R. Browning, and Jeremy Noakes. Raul Hilberg is one of the first historians to write a full length history of the Holocaust. He was born in Austria in 1926. His controversial Destruction of European Jewry appeared first in 1961, and was later revised in 1985. He wrote this after immigrating to the US in 1939 and serving in the US military. Hilberg served in the war in the occupation of Germany, helping in the search for Nazis to prosecute for war crimes. He makes it clear at the outset that to his mind, the Holocaust is not an extraordinary event. He says, "The destruction of the European Jews between 1933 and 1945 appears to us now as an unprecedented event in history.... Yet, if we analyze this singularly massive upheaval, we discover that most of what happened in those twelve years had already happened before. The Nazi destruction process ...was the culmination of a cyclical trend." (Hilberg, page 8). Hilberg denies the existence of any long-held plan. He states that, "The process of destruction unfolded in a definite pattern. It did not, however, proceed from a basic plan. No bureaucrat in 1933 could have predicted what kind of measures would be taken in 1938, nor was it possible in 1938 to foretell the configuration of the undertaking in 1942." (Hilberg, page 50) He deems that while the destruction of the Jews may seem as if it was incredibly thought out, it was actually planned as the …show more content…
She was born in New York in 1915 to Polish immigrants. She had worked in YIVO both in Vilna and in New York alongside Eastern European Jews, and helped sequence the thousands of books confiscated by the Nazis soon after the war ended. These experiences shaped her, and all of her works reflect her passion and love for the Jewish …show more content…
The two points of views he follows are those of AJ P. Taylor who sees Germany as having a romantic-nationalistic tradition that accentuated the worship of a powerful state and a great leader. Noakes notes that there is convincing evidence that Germany had a vigorous political culture along with a healthy participatory political culture. The second argument that he states is that many historians assess that the weakening of this democratic culture was due to crisis after crisis, such as the defeat of World War I, the revolution of November 1918, the hyperinflation of 1922 and the great Depression. Noakes feels that both arguments are correct. The overall political structure broke under the crises, but he believes undoubtedly that the German military and nobility held romantic views that enabled them to embrace Hitler
Historiography Paper
Mr. Deutsch
When did the Nazis decide to commit genocide against the Jews and what influenced their decision?
Hitler’s Nazi regime exterminated 6,000,000 Jews with unending effort until the close of the war. The execution of this mass murder required enormous manpower and large bureaucracies. However, was the idea of the Final Solution always envisioned? A major debate amongst historians was raised. 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 this debate. The former argues that the Holocaust emerged as a matter of functionality, meaning it was merely thought up as a short term plan and not a long intended scheme. The latter asserts that there was a plan, and Hitler aimed for the eradication of the Jews from the dawn of Nazi power. Their dispute focuses on two central issues: whether Hitler gave the order for the Holocaust and was fully aware of what was going on, and whether or not the German bureaucracy was acting in a premeditated and coordinated fashion. The main debate between functionalists and intentionalists erupts among German historians in the 1970’s, although similar debates take place between Jewish historians such as Raul Hilberg and Lucy Dawidowicz. In this paper we will be considering the four viewpoints from the following historians: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Raul Hilberg, Christopher R. Browning, and Jeremy Noakes. Raul Hilberg is one of the first historians to write a full length history of the Holocaust. He was born in Austria in 1926. His controversial Destruction of European Jewry appeared first in 1961, and was later revised in 1985. He wrote this after immigrating to the US in 1939 and serving in the US military. Hilberg served in the war in the occupation of Germany, helping in the search for Nazis to prosecute for war crimes. He makes it clear at the outset that to his mind, the Holocaust is not an extraordinary event. He says, "The destruction of the European Jews between 1933 and 1945 appears to us now as an unprecedented event in history.... Yet, if we analyze this singularly massive upheaval, we discover that most of what happened in those twelve years had already happened before. The Nazi destruction process ...was the culmination of a cyclical trend." (Hilberg, page 8). Hilberg denies the existence of any long-held plan. He states that, "The process of destruction unfolded in a definite pattern. It did not, however, proceed from a basic plan. No bureaucrat in 1933 could have predicted what kind of measures would be taken in 1938, nor was it possible in 1938 to foretell the configuration of the undertaking in 1942." (Hilberg, page 50) He deems that while the destruction of the Jews may seem as if it was incredibly thought out, it was actually planned as the …show more content…
She was born in New York in 1915 to Polish immigrants. She had worked in YIVO both in Vilna and in New York alongside Eastern European Jews, and helped sequence the thousands of books confiscated by the Nazis soon after the war ended. These experiences shaped her, and all of her works reflect her passion and love for the Jewish …show more content…
The two points of views he follows are those of AJ P. Taylor who sees Germany as having a romantic-nationalistic tradition that accentuated the worship of a powerful state and a great leader. Noakes notes that there is convincing evidence that Germany had a vigorous political culture along with a healthy participatory political culture. The second argument that he states is that many historians assess that the weakening of this democratic culture was due to crisis after crisis, such as the defeat of World War I, the revolution of November 1918, the hyperinflation of 1922 and the great Depression. Noakes feels that both arguments are correct. The overall political structure broke under the crises, but he believes undoubtedly that the German military and nobility held romantic views that enabled them to embrace Hitler