Summary Historians and the Holocaust - An overview of interpretations
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Course
Unit 3 - Interpretations question (9489)
Institution
CIE
A thorough and well-rounded overview of the shift in historians' perspectives on the holocaust, why it happened and who was to blame. This summary provides analysis of its own as well as of famous historians such as Raul Hilberg, and helped enable students to achieve A* at A level.
1960s
Early studies of the Holocaust did not consider the decision making process and took
for granted Hitler’s role in that decision making process, instead the focus was on the
timing of the decision.
Leon Poliakov in 1961 argued that Hitler didn’t have an exact plan for extermination
from the beginning.
Wolfgang Scheffler in 1960 preferred the argument that the Holocaust wasn’t planned
years before it was carried out but rather followed a ‘logical path’.
Raul Hilberg in 1961 was the first to suggest that there wasn’t a single order to
annihilate the Jews or a master plan, rather a sequence of decisions.
1970s – Two schools of thought
The first school of thought works off the basis that the origins of the Holocaust were
more complicated than being unplanned and Hitler’s responsibility.
Karl Scheunes in 1970 downplayed Hitler’s role in anti-Jewish policy. He suggests
that ‘his hand appears only rarely in the actual making of Jewish policy between 1933
and 1938’ – therefore there was no grand design and little direction for above. There
were competing agendas, one-upmanship – for instance SS, ministers, party radicals
etc competing for Hitler’s favour.
Uwe Adam in 1976 talks about competing interests that conveyed a power struggle
therefore it was not just Hitler’s responsibility. They reject 1941 as a key turning
point and states there was no organised decision before or during the 1st phase of
Operation Barbarossa against Russia to prepare and submit a plan for total solution of
the Jewish problem in German occupied territories.
The other school of thought focuses on Hitler.
Eberhard Jackel marks Hitler as the central motivating force. Even during the idea of
the Madagascar Plan had already decided on a more radical plan, therefore the
Holocaust was a conscious, pre-meditated role.
Late 1970s
Key point to note, Holocaust Studies as a discipline really takes off in the mid/late
1970s, with the release of ‘Holocaust’, a TV series with Meryl Streep in 1978
conveying this had translated to society/the world more broadly.
Polarises further into two schools of thought, one which places Hitler as having the
pivotal role in the planning of Nazi policy, representing intentions derived from
coherent and consistent ideology, and the other enforcing the polycratic nature of the
Nazi state, where there was intense competition, opposing agenda and chaotic
decision making.
Tim Mason coined the terms ‘intentionalism’ and ‘functionalism’ to describe these
two opposing views.
Intentionalists
Summary – The Holocaust was a result of definite intention and planning by Hitler.
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