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Cambridge A-Level History (9489) Paper 3: The Holocaust Notes

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Cambridge A-Levels

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A* standard notes for Cambridge A-Level History (9389/9489) Paper 3 European option: The Holocaust. Includes detailed analysis of Holocaust Historiography (intentionalist, structuralist, functionalist, synthesis, and contemporary schools of thought), evaluation of events (leading up to, and of the...

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a level history
cie history
cambridge a level history
nazi germany
the holocaust
the holocaust notes
holocaust historiography
historiography notes
hitlers germany
cambridge a level history 9489

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A-LEVEL HISTORY: P3 (9489)
EUROPEAN OPTION, TOPIC 2: THE HOLOCAUST
0. Introduction
● ‘Holocaust’
○ Composite of 2 Greek words
○ Suggests offering of a sacrifice by burning
○ Can mistakenly imply mass murder of Jews was a form of martyrdom rather than
genocide

es
○ Other word: Hebrew word ‘Shoah’ (meaning ‘catastrophe’)

1. Hitler’s Responsibility
→ Introduction to the Debate
● Main debate (Functionalism/Structuralism vs Intentionalism)
○ Was there a master plan on the part of Adolf Hitler to launch the Holocaust?

ot
○ Did the initiative for the Holocaust come from above, with orders from Hiter, or from
below, within the ranks of the German bureaucracy?
○ Functionalist/Intentionalist terms coined in 1981 essay by British Marzist historian
Timothy Mason

N
● Intentionalism: interpretations assuming that Hitler/the Nazis planned to exterminate the Jews
from the start
● Structuralism: interpretations arguing that it was the nature of the Nazi state that produced
genocide
○ No coherent plan; chaotic competition for Hitler’s approval between different elements
ay
of the leadership produced a situation in which genocide could occur
● Functionalism: sees the Holocaust as an unplanned, ad hoc response to wartime developments
in E. EU when Germany conquered areas with large Jewish populations
○ Closely related to structuralism
● Synthesis interpretations: interpretations which show characteristics of more than one of the
nj
above
● Intentionalist & Functionalist Thoughts
Intentionalists Functionalists
Sa

● Hitler was an all-powerful dictator who made most ● Question whether Hitler was a strong dictator
decisions & controlled what went on in Nazi ○ Hitler exerted considerable influence
Germany over course of events, but not always
the prime mover
● Domestic/foreign policy determined by
● In theory: was an all powerful dictator
determination to purify/strengthen the Aryan race ○ Reality: did not initiate every major
○ Internal: eliminating Jews, Gypsies, & development in Third Reich
disabled
a

● Hitler was weak, lazy dictator, frequently
○ External: lebensraum indecisive
○ Operation Barbarossa (USSR invasion ○ An opportunist; responding to events
ni

June 1941) was deliberate attempt to win rather than taking initiative
○ Spontaneous, haphazard &
lebensraum, destroy communism &
unpredictable
eliminate Jews ■ Eg. 1935 Nuremberg Laws
was done to appease
So

hardcore anti-Semites in
NSDAP

● Areas of Debate
○ Hitler’s responsibility?
■ What personal role did Hitler play?
■ Was it a long term plan to exterminate EU's Jewish population?
■ Was it a centralised or decentralised event?
○ Himmler & SS role?

, ○ European responsibility?
■ Anti-semitism was European
○ Connection to euthanasia?
■ Should euthanasia programme be considered separately from genocide?
■ Was it the “first chapter”? (Henry Friedlander)
○ Collective guilt of German people?
■ Post 1945: many Germans claimed they didn’t know what was happening to
the Jews

es
■ Hitler & Himmler tried to keep knowledge about Final Solution from German &
international opinion
■ Several senior Nazis & Nuremberg trials claimed they knew nothing
■ Raul Hilberg: large no. of Germans were involved in the “machinery of
destruction”

ot
■ Daniel Goldhagen: most Germans supported policy of mass murder
● 1000,000-500,000 Germans directly implicated in it
■ How anti-semitic were most Germans?
■ How many people knew what was going on in the east?
■ How many were implicated in the Holocaust?

N
○ Involvement of the German army?
○ Papal responsibility?
■ Could they have done more to help the Jews?
■ Pope Pius XII said nothing in condemnation of the Holocuast despite being well
ay aware of it
■ Could moral pressure by the church have an impact on public opinion?
○ Allied responsibility?
○ How many died?

→ Background of Anti-semitism & Rascist Theories
nj
● Anti-Semitism: prejudice against Jews as a group
○ Characterised by religious, racial, cultural & ethnic hatreds
○ Individual expressions of hatred & discrimination against individual Jews
○ Organised violent attacks by mobs on the Jewish communities
Sa

● Medieval Anti-Semitism (500-1400)
○ Jews blamed for death of Christ & not accepting Christianity (ie. 1190: Third Crusade)
○ Myth of “blood libel”: rumour that Jews used the blood of Christian infants in rituals
○ Leaders in Christian EU isolated Jews from economic, social & political life
○ Blamed Jews for causing the Black Death
● 18th & 19th Century
○ EU became less dominated by religion
a

○ Accepted Jews as citizens with the same rights & made efforts to integrate them into
society
ni

○ Western EU was more welcoming than E. EU = migration
● Racial Anti-semitism
○ Categorising racial characteristics
■ Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (mid 1850s: Essay on the Inequality of
So

Human Races)
● Originator of the idea that the “Aryan race” was superior
● Argued various races were physically & psychologically different
● Rise & fall of civilisation was determined racially
● All high cultures in the world were the Aryan race’s work
○ Cultures declined when the Aryan ruling caste interbred with
members of “racially less valuable” orders
● Influenced many Germans to exaggerate the importance of the
Nordic/German “race”

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