Topic 7: The Nature
of the ProcessTopic 7: The Nature
of the ProcessFunctionalism
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes three basic types of functionalism. (See also a sociological functionalism) Applying these definitions to the Holocaust/Shoah might appear challenging but let me suggest the following: Wiithin the context of Hitler's Nazi Germany, functionalism could be understood as an explanation for the mechanism of the destruction of European Jewry. As such, it would lead one to look primarily to the bureaucracy which implemented the bits and pieces of what emerged as the Holocaust. To a certain extent, functionalism deals with the immediate situation, moves responsibility away from the general individual, and redirects it towards those at the top of the Nazi bureacracy. An individual such as Adolf Eichmann, consequently, is reduced to a cog in this system of destruction and distantly removed from the true decision-making processes -- a model of the Arendt's banality of evil. Within this context, however, it is still quite possible to hold the individual responsible for his/her actions. It is this assumption which gives a certain strength to the International Military Tribunal and the pursuit of Denazification by the Allies. It does not, however, assume that the origins or root causes of the Holocaust remain in a past which must be removed root-and-branch, i.e., it does not necessitate looking back to the days of Martin Luther. On the other hand, this approach does not eliminate the possibility of a future where individuals would seek to pursue a similar course of action.
Structuralism
Structuralism,
as applied to Hitler's Nazi Germany, could be understood as a focus on
the larger course of German history. (See also a sociological structuralism)
Sufferring from a belated sense of nation (Ralf Dahrendorf), Germany and
the Germans brought into the 20th century the desire for their place in
the sun or perhaps we could say "their time in the spot-light." Aggressive
nationalism, however, merged with biological Social Darwinism, Antisemitism,
and anti-Communism within the flawed peace of 1919-1933. In the final
years, Hitler's National Socialism flourished at the expense of democratic
Weimar. Within this context, once again, it can be argued that the
place of the individual as historical actor (meaning as a carrier of responsibility
for the actions of Nazi Germany) is replaced by the all-encompassing vision
of a history, culture, as well as socio-political system acting in a virtually
deterministic manner. These assumptions place a heavy burden upon
German history and a society whose sense of identity appears rooted in
its past. In response, Denazification would focus primarily upon
the removal of those vestiges of German history which resulted in Hitler's
National Socialism. As part of a historical process, however, National
Socialism is historicized into German history without the possibility
of a repeat-event.
Origins of Nazi Genocide
Northwestern Institute for the Jewish Civilization and the Holocaust
Notes from Henry Friedlander's Presentation -- Any mistakes or misunderstanding
must rest with the note-taker -- myself, David A. Meier.
Friedlander has made a solid contribution to the study of Nazi genocide by asking
the question of context. With the intended focus on his work, Friedlander acknowledges
a limited debt to Hannah Arendt for the title of his work and then moved quickly
on.....
Friedlander's concluded B after ten years of archival work B that Nazi genocide
was directed against three groups, namely, Jews, Gypsies, and the Disabled.
They were officially selected because of their biological heredity. This was
a factor one could not alter. These three groups were defined as individuals
who because of their blood were slated for extermination. Not political or behavioral
causes but racism emerging from eugenics. For the Nazis, the aim became to promote
the purity of the gene pool of the German Volk. These foreign groups among the
German Volk would denigrate the strength of the German nation. Not class determined
one's place, but one's genetic make-up. There were, of course, other groups,
e.g., African-Americans and so-called Rhineland bastards (offspring of German
women from foreign occupation troops -- Indians, Africans, and African-Americans
-- after the First World War). The compulsory sterilization law in 1933 and
marriage law of 1935 fit within this policy changes of the German government.
Thus, Nazi policy moved first to remove them from the German community. The
early policy of the German government had been to encourage emigration as well
as separate these groups from the German public. The decision to begin mass
murder comes after 1939.
Germany's intellectual elites contributed to the emerging ideas of eugenics
by rejecting the basic concept of the equality of all humankind. Rather, scientists
moved more and more towards the inequality among the human species. Germany's
leading scientists, appealing to Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man,
provides ample examples of how intelligence and the potential for criminality
had been measured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Race hygiene specialists,
as it was called in Germany, asked about the interaction of Germans and Africans.
There were early prohibitions in the German colonies against intermarriage.
There were also scholars investigating the nature of twins in Africa (University
of Frankfurt).
Ironically, eugenics had been initially an Anglo-American area and only belatedly
did the Germans become interested. The first 1907 compulsory sterilization law
was passed in Indiana. The Supreme Court even upheld the statute from Virginia
declaring the desirability of sterilization B a decision upheld by Holmes and
Taft. In 1920, Bindig and Hoche, German law professor and psychologist respectively,
both argued that the killing of the disabled was justified given the thousands
of the Abest and brightest@ had died on the front lines in the First World War.
Society, in short, had to be protected.
Within the German context, the eugenic field took on new extremes (0.5% of the
population would eventually be sterilized). The step to actually killing people
come with the war. In 1935, the Reich Physician Wagner was told by Hitler that
with beginning of the war so-called mercy killings would begin in earnest.
Appealing to the notion of Rechtssicherheit B security of the law, Hitler and
his assistants needed to remain true to the law given public expectations, i.e.,
the acts of a mercy killing had to be defined as legal. German law, thus, began
to define what constituted a sufficient deficiency to warrant their physical
elimination, e.g., physical deformities, heredity diseases, congenital alcoholism
(the greatest problem of that time), epilepsy, asthma, and other a heredity
problems, including the Jews. Initially, however, the law did not allow the
killing of these individuals. Interestingly, the law was passed but done so
secretly.
In the winter of 1939-1940, children are the first victims through over medication
-- T4 operation. Shifting the attention to adults, the German administration
invented the killing center -- a term Friedlander took from Hilberg. The idea
resulted in the use of the assembly-line mas murder in a gas chamber, crematorium,
and plundering the corpses (Leichenfledderei), e.g., removal of gold teeth et
cetera. These developments were aided by Ukrainian volunteers and the former
members of the T4 operation. The T4 operation, furthermore, also proved to Hitler
that the German bureaucracy would implement the policy. Hitler did what he thought
he could get away with and once in eastern Europe there were more opportunities.
In addition, the families of the disabled were also, thus, suspect in the eyes
of the government. Pursing this line of thought, however, Friedlander insisted
that the German just did not have the guts to pursue this issue in the homes
of everyday Germans.
What did people think about Friedlander's activities? He seemed first involved
in 1970. He feared the watering-down of the Holocaust by universalizing it.
On the other hand, the Holocaust was clearly sui generis in character. It was
not, however, directed at Jews, Gypsies, and the Disabled. In the beginning,
however, he was challenged for attempting to compare AJews and crazy people.
As for Gypsies (Sinti and Roma), there were of course some differences in their
treatment by the Germans. The argument that Jews were the target group because
of German Antisemitism while the Gypsies because they were viewed as criminals.
Friedlander, however, found that claim racism
applied given simply the German inclusion of kids and babies in the categories
of criminals. In short, Friedlander rejects the simple preeminence of Antisemitism
(hatred of Jews) in Nazi policy seems short-sighted and unproven.
As for homosexuals, Friedlander recognizes Nazi policy did not focus on them
At the time, the German did not interpret homosexuality was not viewed as hereditary
but, like Communists, but as a behavioral problem. As for popular protests,
the German government had to be somewhat careful. As these decisions were based
on a pseudo-science, it finds race and ethnic groups being equated in a manner
that is quite difficult to digest today. On the whole, religious considerations
did not enter into the picture in policy decision-making. Friedlander made an
interesting comparison between Himmler's desire for a reservation of Apure gypsies@
and the desire for a museum for the vanished Jews (Prague) as not at odds with
his general attitudes towards his idea of race and heredity.
As for the doctors in the program, he places their rabid Antisemitism as the
precondition for their rise and then their careerism moved them to look for
these opportunties provided by the Nazi regime.
The Holocaust and the Second World War
Northwestern Institute for the Jewish Civilization and the Holocaust
Notes from Gerhard Weinberg's Presentation -- Any mistakes or misunderstanding
must rest with the note-taker -- myself, David A. Meier.
Introduction
Drawing upon Gerhard Weinberg's perspective on the Holocaust and the Second World War presented at Northwestern University=s Institute for Jewish Civilization and the Holocaust (June 2000). Weinberg's central focus was on the direct relationship between the Second World War and the Holocaust. The concept of each as independent of one another is simply wrong. Roughly 95% of the Jews victimized by Nazis aggression resided in territories outside the German state of 1933. For example, why didn't the Allies assist the Jews of Warsaw in 1943 but did help the Poles during the uprising of 1944? Simply put, it was not that Warsaw had moved but that the Allies had moved. Assistance for the Jews in 1943 was not basically possible. Furthermore, it is essential to return to the reality that wars are fought for reasons and purposes, which in turn influence how the war is pursued an fought.
Part I
From the German side, one could see as early as the 1920's that Hitler differed
from the rest of the political right was their intent to get back what was lost
in the Treaty of Versailles. Was this sufficient to call forth the sacrifices
which such a move and or war would entail? Basically, Hitler said he wanted
war but he was also presenting reasons for why Germany should go to war. From
the vantage point of Germany 1914, this was not the goal which Hitler had in
mind but a larger vision of a revived Germany truly engaged in Weltmacht and
Weltpolitik but with a clear racial-biological twist. Those elements which he
defined as inhibiting the realization of this vision went well beyond the Treaty
of Versailles (and its supporters) to include Soviet Bolshevism and the Jews.
Hitler's planning for the war also gives away a great deal of the nature of
his planning. Just as his military developments and programs focused initially
on the West, it was because of his basic belief that the war against the Soviet
Union would be easy B a reflection perhaps on 1918. His planning for world domination,
which has often been down-played, he did finally begin the planning for long-range
weapons which would make this possible.
Hitler's racial planning begins virtually in 1933 with the decisions regarding
compulsory sterilization and a few years later in the policy of euthanasia.
The extension of these plans onto the rest of the world paralleled his military
planning for war. Specifically, Hitler intends to implement this vision in the
atmosphere of war where he believes these decisions will be either submerged
in the general concern about the war.
Weinberg feels more than confident that Hitler had a a clear vision of what
was to come. The killing of the handicapped, for example, was dated September
1, 1939. Weinberg finds it inconceivable that Hitler made this decision on this
date sheerly by accident. However, it is equally clear that some experimentation
took place to decide how to realize this vision, ranging from how, when, where,
whom to kill. Weinberg points to 1939 as the beginning of this process of experimentation
and it began with the killing of the aged and inform.
If the process slowed in 1940, it could be accounted for through public criticism.
By August 1941, the war in the east is generating serious concern. One question
concerned the fate of seriously wounded soldiers. Would they too be slated for
killing? In response, Hitler and the government do not change their policies
but their procedure. With respect to thee activities, the clinical killings
continued on into the first months of the postwar era. Turning back to 1939,
the killing outside Germany is in many ways but a continuation of the policy
of killing first introduced in Germany.
As for the Jews, the 1938 Reichskristalnacht should be seen as part of the process.
In the next stage, what is often overlooked is the German expectation that they
would win the war. If Jews were viewed as part of the problem, then success
in war would make the problem worse rather than better and it would also suggest
that the Asolution@ to the problem would become ever more radical. Considering
Hitler's declaration of January 1939 regarding the intended extermination of
the Jews if there were war and given that he intended there to be war, then
his so-called prediction becomes evidence Hitler's intent to kill European Jewry.
The conquest of Poland and the offenses in the West served to allow Germany
to acquire large numbers of German (as well as non-German) Jews that has fled
Germany in the 1930's. What of the Madagascar Plan? It would be the place where
the Jews would be sent B although German authorities were not considering that
the island was already inhabited. Africa, furthermore, would serve as base of
operations for further war against the West.
Plans of conquest? These plans did not entail only the military conquest but
what was to become of the people as well as the economic resources to be exploited
by German authorities. April-June 1941 focused on North Africa but German planners
were anticipating the war against the Soviet Union. Thus, sometime before the
invasion of the Soviet Union the decision for the physical elimination of the
Jews had already been decided. Did they intend only to use the Einsatzgruppen?
These groups counted only roughly 3000 individuals (Heinz Hoehne). German authorities
were counting on local pogroms. Those which did occurred were interpreted in
Berlin as much less violent than were hoped.
In 1996, declassified reports revealed that the killing groups were roughly
seven times larger than previously believed. These British documents were shared
with the Soviets in 1942 and the United States in 1983. The numbers rose to
about 18,000 or more men were involved in the killings given the involvement
of the Ordnungspolizei alongside the Einsatzgruppen. Furthermore, the police
reports were considerably more detailed than the Einsatzgruppen reports. These
reports also indicate that Germans planned to create killing centers deeper
in the Soviet Union. That these policies were not follow up on reflects the
course of the war and the new realities faced by the German military. Similarly,
the German military leadership generally supported these efforts. In July 1941,
Weinberg believes the decision to eliminate Jews in the newly occupied territories
was extended to all areas under German control. July 16, 1941, Hitler describes
the future of eastern Europe as the future German paradise. Even at that point,
Hitler even anticipated the reluctance of the Hungarians to give up their Jews.
The war, however, does not go as anticipated. These records could not come into
Allied hands simply because they were destroyed by both the Germans as well
as the Allies during the war. Weinberg said these documents were simply not
part of the documentation microfilmed at Alexandria. Instead, these records
came from British intercepts of German miliary field radio broadcasts.
The killing at this stage proves hard on the killers... rising suicides, alcohol
abuse, and psychological disintegration. The decision is then reached to make
the killing easier for the killers. The killing centers are moved from territory
close to Germany and further into the East. Those running the killing centers
in Germany were then transferred to the East. (Henry Friedlander=s The Origins
of Nazi Genocide) Killing centers as institutions comes as a reaction to the
large numbers as well as the strain of the killing. In addition, the Germans
could make use of local peoples in these plans. It is within this atmosphere
that the plans for the Wannsee were being made (November-December 1941). In
short, the basic ideas were never changed although the actualization of these
ideas/goals took various paths.
Weinberg is strongly convinced that more attention should be paid to Hitler's
actual statements regarding his vision of the Jews and what he wants to do with
them as well as his long-term plans for the Germans, which in turn made war
virtually inevitable. From this vantage point, the merger of war of the Final
Solution become inseparable from one another. He interprets Hitler as setting
the stage, determining the pulse of Nazi policy, and that this policy would
clearly lead to the physical elimination of the Jewish people. Weinberg finds
contemporary cynicism about the statements made by politicians as inhibiting
our ability to see the intent behind Hitler's statements, that they were not
made simply to woo public opinion, or generate higher ratings at the poles.
Weinberg labels Hitler as bent on world domination as early as 1927. Hitler's
apparent willingness to compromise in his intention to kill the Jews et al fits
more into a vision of eventual German victory than an anticipated defeat B even
if this point of view is increasingly irrational.
Is Weinberg reacting against the apparent fragmentation of Holocaust/Second
World War scholarship in favor of a return to the more global approach that
characterized scholarship of the immediate postwar era?
Part II
Despite having watched the war-effort stall, the Wannsee Conference of January
1942 it is clear that the German do not believe that they would lose the war.
Much the contrary, the discussion still revolves in part around what to do with
the Jews which they would encounter in the occupation of other European countries
including the United Kingdom. German Holocaust policy in eastern Europe continued.
In North Africa, German and then Italian forces are eventually halted by 1942
and periodically prior to that time as well.
Reflecting back to 1938 and British involvement in the Mandate of Palestine
and Transjordan, in the winter of 1938-39 British policy experienced a switch.
British troops at the time were trying to put down uprisings in their mandates.
These struggles were, of course, primarily with the Arabs of the region. When
the struggle with Germany emerges, then the need for British officers serving
in Palestine, e.g., Wingate et al, were brought back to Britain to prepare for
the war against Germany. Pressure within Parliament, however, moved in the opposite
resisting preparations for war. Within this context, the British issue their
White Paper on relations with Palestine, including restrictions on the emigration
of additional Jews to the region. This paper should also be understood in the
context where they were allowing a large number of Jews into the United Kingdom
as well as having eased restrictions on Jewish emigration to Britain after the
November 1938 Night of Broken Glass. British preparations for war at the time
begin to focus on Egypt and the protection of the canal zone. As a sort of default
consequence, the British prevented the Germans from taking Palestine and implementing
their Jewish policy within the former British mandate. Ironically perhaps, the
British decision to limit Jew emigration in Palestine may well have potentially
served to prevent further Jewish loses had German troops progressed that far.
In short, a series of decisions were reached though hot for the reason of protecting
the Jews but having the real consequence of protecting the Jews from the Germans.
Similarly, the battle of Stalingrad served to prevent the German advance from
reaching further into the region of the Middle East, which would have entirely
changed the conditions of the region. German plans for those regions and the
elimination of the Jews included Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Middle East.
In other words, the same type of planning which had taken place prior to the
German advance into eastern Europe was also reflected in German planning for
regions which, historically speaking, they did not conquer. These Allied victories
in limiting the German advance also served to prevent the extension Germany
Final Solution of the Jewish Question into other regions beyond eastern Europe.
In 1944, one could turn attention to German activities in northern Italy at
a point after the Italian surrender to the Allies and Hungary. Important is
to see how the Germans did apply their policies to territories of their former
Allies. The March 1944 decision of occupy Hungary and eliminate Hungarian Jewry
fits into this general picture. Hungary's half-million Jews and various immigrant
Jews seeking protection is directly related to the fact of the German decision
to occupy Hungary first. By early July 1944, pressure from various sources does,
until October, brake the flow of Hungarian Jewry to Auschwitz. However, the
closing of the Red Army on Hungary and Budapest in particular make the completion
of a Judenfrei Hungary impossible.
As for the motivation of those involved, administrators and those involved in
the program of the Holocaust by this time have developed a vested interest in
it and its perpetuation. These individuals viewed their participation as intimately
linked with their visions of the career paths as well as their overall future.
Once the situation changes with the shadow of Germany's defeat, then involvement
with the Holocaust still serve their purpose by keeping them away from the front
where they could well expect to die. In short, it would prove much safer for
them to continued the killing of unarmed individuals than to fight at the front.
In addition, one could also detect other forms of friction. These included problems
with the German economy and the economies of occupied areas are very short of
workers at a point in the war when demands for German manpower at the front
were as high as ever. German casualties, of course, emphasize just how desperate
the situation would become. As a consequence, German authorities begin to look
to POWs, the local populations, and last but not least German women as well.
Within this context, there emerges an Ainternal frictions that evolve around
the production process which is evident in the various strategies employed in
the ghettos and camps vacillating between a continued policy of slow starvation
to one of keeping them alive long enough to serve as workers B perhaps only
until Germany has lost the war. Within the German bureaucracy, this question
is hotly debated, e.g., between Speer's Ministry of Armament, the Todt Organization,
and Himmler's SS.
These struggles revealed more than competing interests. While generating volumes
of documentary evidence regarding their activities, one can also detect the
unwritten assumptions which they did not feel it necessary to write down. Looking
to Himmler's Posen speech of October 1943, Himmler makes a reference to those
Jews still working in industry. Himmler makes clear that he and Speer would
be resolving this problem shortly. The 25,000 or Jews working in German factories
were then shot B not even sent off to one of the Death Camps. This particular
event was referred to as the Erntefest or harvest festival. Once again, one
can detect the German expectation of winning the war.
Within the final months of the war, Germans are clearly facing their own expected
loss of the war. Even so, the bureaucracy still functioned more or less the
way it had before but it was showing the signs of strain of the war, e.g., low
rations. Rations within the camps, consequently, also decline although the numbers
of individuals within the camps is on the rise as many individuals were evacuated
as the Red Army and the Allies approached Germany. It is within this environment
that illnesses and diseases take an even greater toll on the camp inmates. On
the other hand, those involved don=t show signs of wanting to stop the process
but much the contrary. They wanted to keep the process going practically until
the final minutes. After the war, many of them simply try to escape into the
woodwork, but there were others who may have witnessed the atrocities and could
implicate them in the entire process. These individuals would be, naturally,
eliminated. There was, to be sure, no uniformity in their responses.
Concluding
As a final note, consider these questions: What would have happened if the
war had ended a week earlier and how many more would died had the war ended
a week later? The differences could have been enormous. From the perspective
those in charge, the Final Solution was a high priority project and whenever
it came up against opposition from others with the system the ideological imperative
of killing the Jews prevailed. Returning to the original motivation for Hitler
to take Germany to war, it was not because of their interest in building hotels
in captured territories but to eliminate those designated as racially undesirable.
Evidence of the Holocaust, in other words, can also be gleamed from what they
planned in the greater scheme of things as well as how they planned to dispense
with the Jews, et al, in the occupied territories. For example, consider the
experimentation on twins by Joseph Mengele which could not have shown B assuming
it had any redeeming scientific features B would only have fit into quite long-range
ideological objective of creating the a better German race and at a faster pace
while also integrating certain foreign peoples and those children kidnaped in
the East who demonstrated Germanic traits into the ranks of the Germanic peoples,
e.g., the Dutch. Within a context characterized by military and paramilitary
life, the ideological objectives, purposes, and preconceptions took precedence
over all other concerns.
To understand German historical thinking there are two substantially important pieces of ideology buried within all German historians. Fundamentally, German nationalism, since its earliest beginnings, has fostered ideas of a higher German fraternity and superiority. Secondly, the idea that the individual's greatest purpose in life is to give himself up to the will and control of the community. The latter can be traced back to Wilhelm von Humboldt, German scholar, philosopher and diplomat. The spiritual German state known as Machtstaat is said to be "history's driving force" within Germany. Since the state is infallible and to a point god-like in the eyes of Germans, all Imperialist and military actions by the government is justified. Many of the prominent and highly talented German historians such as Leopold von Ranke and Freidrich Meinecke have been noted as seeing German History and what drives in this kind of ideology.
During the Third Reich the liquidation of any historian who opposed
the regime was assured. For example, in 1935 the disintegration of the
prestigious Historische
Reichskmmission, which opposed the Nazi's, was accomplished by the
young historian Walter Frank, a hard-line anti-Semitic and socialist. Frank,
with the help from the Nazi's, created the Reichsinstitut für Geschichte
des neuen Deutshland. This was to be the center for the historical
data produced by the Third Reich. Frank set up his Institute into three
departments " The Jewish Question", "Political leadership in the World
War", and "Post- war History." All three departments were headed by committed
Nazi historians Karl Alexander von Muller, Erich Marks and Heinrich Ritter
von Srbik. The opening of the institute in 1935 was a State affair with
both the SA and SD. Included was Nazi rank and file such as Rudolf Hess,
Hitler's Deputy, and Alfred Rosenberg. Between 1937 and 1944 the Institute
published 9 volumes on the Judenfrage alone, not including the annual conferences
held to further discuss the matter. It is undoubted that the main focus
of Frank's Institute was on anti-Semitism. Soon Frank, an eccentric man,
had estranged his assistant Wilhelm Grau. Grau was autonomous and surpassed
Frank's reputation by his initiative, which got him fired. Grau found a
job working for the city of Frankfort. The mayor of Frankfort wanted to
expand the cities reputation for anti-Semitic passion. Grau soon set up
his own institute, Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage. Both
this institute and Frank's continued to work until the end of the war.
The post war period is marked with shame and guilt, most German citizens chose to deny all that had happened. However, German historians had a "professional obligation" to fulfill. Meinecke in 1946 published his book The German Catastrophe in which he argued that German National Socialism was not part of the pattern demonstrated in the past by Germany politically. He viewed it mostly as an anomaly which had occurred in Europe. In addition according to Meinecke history is made by key events or luck. As an example of this he mentions Hitler's appointment as Chancellor by Hindenburg. In addition he also attributes Hitler's rise to power to luck: it was all luck that Hitler managed to convince the German public to kill millions. How else would you explain it? Meunike fails completely in properly addressing the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
Gerherd Ritter, a contemporary of Meinecke, published a similar thesis. He, like Meinecke, saw it mainly a European problem with dictatorships that had been started by Napoleon. Ritter also failed to sufficiently cover the death of 6 million Jews within Europe under the Third Reich. In 1961, Fritz Fischer published the first definitive book dealing with World War II and the Holocaust. Fischer concluded that the German government had full cooperation and support from all classes of society to the colonization and extermination of Europe. To attain their objectives Germany prepared and launched a war. Fischer proved that both Meinecke and Ritter had based their respective thesis on fallacies. Fischer stated that National Socialism was just an extension from German hegemony in the past and that is was innate in all of Germany to be militaristic, superior and imperialist. Fischer was the first in a new generation of German historians to acknowledge what happened in the war. His affect on modern German historians is substantial.
English and American Historians
There is much trivia as to what really went on in Germany before, during and after the Second World War; according most historians of these nationalities. To some it is a justifiably insulting action, the fact that there is little or no information given in their accounts about just what happened during this era. To others it is an understandable, although hindering question of their personal lifestyles and upbringing. After all, every interpretation is written with at least some bias towards individual thoughts and views.
Ideally, the history of the Holocaust, however compactly composed, should consist of three fundamental components: (1) an exposition of how and by whom the European Jews were annihilated; (2) an explanation of why they were annihilated, with reference to the history of anti-Semitism; and (3) an appropriated account of their history before the rise of Hitler. To be sure, few textbooks do justice-or partial justice-to the subject, but there are some (Dawidowicz 25.)
This is true to a great extent and therefore reflects directly upon the fact that the history, from ancient times onwards is that of the Christians. The writing of history has always or nearly always relied on the support of the church. Throughout the Middle Ages, the entire history of Europe was written by the grace of the monks in sinister, isolated monasteries. Ever since the Church triumphed over the Synagogue, the Church determined the place of the Jews in history, if indeed they were to have a place at all (Dawidowicz 26.)
These Invisible Jews were made so eternally and remained in this position throughout history even during the Holocaust. This may be the reason nothing was done during the horrendous actions of mass-murder were taking place. The Jews were seen as second-class citizens by the Germans only because they had perceived that way for centuries. Anti-Semitism is the main factor for these atrocities and it did not begin with Hitler. There had been a long past of it evident in Germany and throughout Europe as well.
It is a commonplace observation that Anglo-American political traditions, compounded of liberalism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, and pragmatism, are at complete variance with the political ideologies of communism, fascism, and Nazism (Dawidowicz 29.)
These complete opposite ways of thinking therefore make it nearly impossible
to examine such things in their entirety. It is also true that it is ironic
that the Americans and the British speak so little about such happenings
when they fought against these deeds in the same war.
Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (Online Review)
The enthusiastic efforts of all those that have spent their time in the pursuit of former Nazis that successfully evaded capture by the authorities that tried their compatriots at Nuremberg state their reasons generally to be a pursuit of justice. Arendt makes the same case for the events surrounding the trial of Eichmann at Jerusalem. Justice, she implies, demanded that Eichmann be tried "fairly" for his crimes, and justice likewise demanded that he be convicted; whatever else was accomplished, the fact that this purpose was met argues that the trial, to her, was ultimately justified. Objections to the trial are that while it was not done neatly or completely correctly, its ultimate objective is beyond the reach of such semantics.
"The purpose of a trial is to render justice . . . ; even the noblest
of ulterior purposes . . . can only detract from the law's main business"
(p.253). The fact that the charges against Eichmann were based on laws
formulated after the crimes themselves was justified to Arendt by the simple
fact that the same thing occurred at and after Nuremberg, where the war
criminals were given to the respective nations against whom their crimes
had been committed. As the Jewish people are and
were a nation even before a territory to mark it existed, a fact that
is not disputed, they should likewise be accorded the right to try Eichmann
as one who committed crimes against the Jewish nation (p.258).The argument
against Jerusalem holding the trial because of lack of impartiality likewise
was countered by the Successor trials, all of whom were judged by people
whose nationality was that of the victims (p.259). The last feature of
the Eichmann trial that Arendt acknowledges as irregular involves the kidnapping
and forced extradition of Eichmann against international law. "Its justification
was the unprecendentedness of the crime and the coming into existence of
a Jewish State . . . [and the fact that] the realm of legality offered
no alternative . . . " (p.264). Since Eichmann had to be tried by a Jewish
court, any laws that prevented such from occurring were allowed to be broken.
Several other problems with the trial were mentioned, though not adequately
addressed, by the author. Apparently German witnesses who had taken part
in the activities concerned were not allowed to give testimony without
risk to themselves (p.129). Presumably the lack of this important testimony
was dismissed by Arendt as irrelevant because the cause of justice had
been served by having Eichmann convicted by a Jewish court. In fact Arendt
seems to dismiss the various purposes
of the trial by Ben-Gurion and others that included to inform the world
and the next generation of Jewish people how they were persecuted by the
Nazis and to help discover other Nazi war criminals as misguided, but does
not seem to conclude that their very presence in the atmosphere of the
trial seemed to prevent any type of fair judgement. Just the idea that
not only Eichmann, but all of the crimes against the Jewish people (p.l9)
were on trial should have implied the possibility that
the court might be more biased and subjective than would be allowed
normally. "With such rhetoric the prosecution gave substance to the chief
argument against the trial, that it was established not in order to satisfy
the demands of justice by to still the victims' desire for and, perhaps,
right to vengeance" (pp.260-261). This seems to be exactly why Eichmann
was tried, with only vague and general regard for true fairness and just
consideration to the defendant. Arendt gives the disturbing
implication that as long as this desire for vengeance, thinly disguised
as a quest for justice, was met, all other imbalances in the trial are
justified. In other words, the desire for the end accepts anything necessary
to achieve it.
Three Major Historic Stages of Christian Anti-Semitism, Culminating in the Holocaust of the Jews
1. You cannot live among us unless you convert to Christianity. These were the early persecutions of the Jews by the Christian Church, starting with the Roman Catholic Church, and beginning in the very early Middle Ages. These persecutions took the forms of:
The Inquisition, begun by the Office of the
Propagation of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church, by the order of
which Jews were Christ-killers and
heretics and must convert to Christianity
or be executed. Most such so-called "conversions" were accomplished under
extreme forms of torture. Those
refusing were murdered in a number of ways,
such as being pressed to death or burned at the stake. Many thousands of
Moors who had settled in Spain from
the African Continent were also murdered.
The Crusades, instituted by the Roman Catholic
Church and took the form of the mass movement of "soldiers of Christ" whose
task was twofold:
1.to retake Jerusalem from
the infidels (the Arabs, who held it at the time), a "victory" for the
church which left, as historians note, "the sands of the
Middle East
red with the blood of Arabs," and
2.to rid Europe of infidels,
primarily Jews. They slaughtered Jews throughout Europe.
2. You cannot live among us. This took the form of:
The expulsion of the Jews from "Christian"
lands, leading to their dispersion into Eastern European countries.
The ghettos, or walled cities, where Jews
were required to live entirely apart from their Christian neighbors.
The indoctrination, of Christians by Church
leaders, who now included major Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther,
a violent anti-Semite who preceded
the later racial anti-Semites with his doctrines
that Jews were incurably evil and a danger to the moral order of the world,
incapable of true conversion or of
correction because of the very nature of their
corrupt Jewishness. He preached that they should be exterminated, or at
least separated from the rest of
humankind, in order that they not be allowed
to spread their pernicious evil.
3. You cannot live. Beginning in the 19th century, the notion that Jews
were an evil race apart from the rest of humankind began to be coupled
with ideas of
extermination of the virus, the Jews. Under Hitler and the Nazis, the
Germans took historic anti-Semitism the necessary further step which would
guarantee the purity
of the Aryan Race and the salvation of the Christian world, the complete
extermination of the Jewish Race. Under this fully-endorsed government
policy, two/ thirds
of the Jews of Europe were massacred by the Germans and their allies.
The unique character of the 20th century Holocaust in Europe and what the elements were that made it possible at that time in history...
There were five:
1. An ancient hatred -- the world's longest hatred -- of the Christians for the Jews.
2. A brutal and powerful dictatorship.
3. A bureaucracy that not only did what it was asked of it but which
showed initiative within the consensus to advance the actions against the
Jews even further than
may have been anticipated.
4. An advanced technology, which made whatever was demanded of it a possibility
5. A warlike atmosphere in Europe, which made it possible for Germany's leaders to declare war powers, thus subverting all laws regarding civil rights.
The combination being repeated in history would make another genocide
not only possible, but probable, as has been demonstrated since World War
II in various
parts of the world: Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. -- even any four
of the five.
The German policy and steps taken which made Jews "the other" -- the outsiders, the unseen, outside the bounds of compassion -- and which led to their destruction...
1. Define the group. Jewishness itself was defined by German policy
as alien, evil, and not capable of being corrected. "Once a Jew, always
a Jew." Jews were
historically the virus which ate at the purity of the Christian Aryans,
and they were the international conspirators whose aim was to overthrow
Christian, Western
civilization.
2. Destroy the economic base of the Jews. Jews were not allowed to work
in any state-affiliated institutions, or to become professionals of any
kind (doctors,
lawyers, teachers, professors, etc.). Jews were not allowed to hold
public office. Jewish businesses were at first boycotted, then purchased
at a fraction of their
worth, then confiscated outright. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated
with the excuse that they had been illegally or illicitly acquired.
3. Ostracize the Jews. Jews were barred from holding public office.
Jews were not allowed to attend German educational institutions. Jews were
not allowed to
serve in the military. Jewish journalists were not allowed to write
for German publications, and Germans were forbidden to read Jewish publications.
Jews were no
longer permitted to bear family names which sounded German, and the
use of their given names was restricted to those permitted by the authorities
-- usually biblical
names. Jews and Aryans were forbidden to intermarry. Other restrictions
ensued. They were not allowed to use public parks, benches, restrooms.
They were not
allowed to eat in German restaurants, attend theaters or movies or
museums or libraries, and the list is endless.
4. Isolate the Jews. The Jews were evicted from their permanent residences,
which were taken over by Germans, or in other countries by their Christian
former
neighbors. Jews were uprooted and deprived of all their personal possessions,
after which they were removed to Ghettos, which totally disrupted their
lives,
overturned all their centuries old social conventions, led to insufferable
over-crowding, tension, dirt, disease.
5. Decimate the Jews. The conditions of their intolerable Ghetto existence
and their limited caloric intake (less than 300 calories per day) led quickly
to starvation
and death.
6. Transport the Jews to "labor" camps, where more often than not, the
so-called labor was totally unproductive and altogether designed to humiliate,
to cause
further suffering to Jews, and to further decimate the Jewish population.
7. Kill the Jews. The implementation of the "final solution," or the
murder of the remaining Jews by the millions in the death camps.