Why? -- National Organization for Women at UH

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Date Posted: 09:26:34 11/29/04 Mon
Author: Bob
Subject: Why?

Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889�April 30, 1945) was the F�hrer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. In that capacity he was Chancellor of Germany, head of government, and head of state, ruling as a dictator.

A gifted, charismatic orator possessed of a profound personal presence, Hitler is regarded as one of the most significant leaders of World history, although he has become, especially in the United States and Western Europe, emblematic of tyranny and evil. The military-industrial complex he fostered pulled Germany out of the post-World War I economic crisis and, at its height, controlled the greater part of Europe.

Hitler's attempts to create a Greater Germany (Lebensraum), specifically the annexation of Austria ("Anschluss") and the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, were one of the primary factors leading to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The embrace of total war both by the Axis and Allied powers during this time led to the destruction of much of Europe. Hitler is held responsible for the racial policy of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the death and displacement of millions occurring during his leadership. Hoping to be the founder of a thousand-year Reich, he was reported to have committed suicide in his bunker beneath Berlin with Germany in ruins around him and the Red Army closing in.

The Holocaust refers to Nazi Germany's systematic genocide of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II starting in 1941 through to 1945.

The Jewish people of Europe were the main targets of the Holocaust, in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". Other groups deemed "undesirable" were also persecuted and murdered. The death toll is estimated at between 10 and 20 million people.

Historical interpretations

Who was directly involved in the killings?

Who authorized the killings?

While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, a mass of evidence suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941, Himmler and he agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution," to the "Jewish Question," the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942 with the participation of fifteen senior officials, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann, the records of which provide the best evidence of the central planning of the Holocaust. Just five weeks later, on February 22 Hitler was recorded saying "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews" to his closest associates.

There is no known document in which Hitler explicitly ordered the Holocaust, although there is documentation that he approved of the Einsatzgruppen, where Jews throughout Russia were shot naked in front of ditches. Most historians believe he not only knew of the Holocaust and the gas chambers but ordered Himmler to carry it out � certainly it was entirely consistent with his lifelong beliefs.

Who knew about the killings?

The full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known until after the war. However, numerous rumors and eye-witness accounts from escapees and others did give some indication that Jews were being killed in large numbers. Some protests were held. For example, on October 29/30, 1942, in the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures held a public meeting to register outrage over Germany's persecution of Jews.

Why did people participate in, authorize, or tacitly accept the killing?

Functionalism versus intentionalism

A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of functionalism versus intentionalism. Intentionalists like Lucy Davidowicz argue that the Holocaust was planned by Hitler from the very beginning. More moderate recent intentionalist historians like Eberhard J�ckel continue to emphasize the relative earliness of the decision to murder the Jews, although they are not willing to claim that Hitler planned the Holocaust from the beginning. Functionalists like Hans Mommsen hold that the Holocaust was started in 1942 as a result of the failure of the Nazi deportation policy and the impending military losses in Russia. They claim that extermination fantasies outlined in Hitler's Mein Kampf and other Nazi literature were mere propaganda and did not constitute concrete plans.

Another controversy was started by the historian Daniel Goldhagen, who argues that ordinary Germans were knowing and willing participants in the Holocaust, which he claims had its roots in a deep eliminationist German anti-Semitism. Most other historians have disagreed with Goldhagen's thesis, arguing that while anti-Semitism undeniably existed in Germany, Goldhagen's idea of a uniquely German "eliminationist" anti-Semitism is untenable, and that the extermination was unknown to many and had to be enforced by the dictatorial Nazi apparatus.

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