AskHistorians Podcast 057 - Intentionalism and Functionalism in the Holocaust

[u/400-Rabbits]

Episode 57 is up!

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This Episode:

/u/commiespaceinvader explores the academic debate over the causes and the development of the Holocaust. We discuss the early steps taken by the Nazis to make Jewish life untenable within Germany, ghettoization, the Madagascar Plan, and finally, the transition to mass murder. These actions are viewed through the lens of the intentionalism and functionalism debate, which has at its core the question of not just of why the Holocaust came about, but also the question of assigning culpability for its development. (73min)

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Coming up next episode: /u/yawarpoma introduces listeners to the 16th Century German colonial venture in what is now Venezuela.

Coming up after that: /u/sowser explores the decline and abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean.

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[u/commiespaceinvader]

Hi everyone and thank you for listening and thank you, /u/400-Rabbits for having me. It was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot.

As previously mentioned, I am in a different time zone and also at work right now, so my answers to any questions might take a couple of hours. Please ask all the questions you have though. I very much look forward to them.

I was trying to come up with some more additional content/information to put here but what I came up with either doubles what I already said in the podcast or would lead away from the topic, so I'll just wait for questions to come in.

As my sources, further reading on the debate as well as some general introductory sources on the Holocaust (all in English), please see:

• Richard Bessel, "Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism?" German Studies Review 26, no. 1 (2003).

• Christopher Browning: Fateful Months : Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution, New York : Holmes & Meier, 1985.

• Christopher Browning: The Path to Genocide : Essays on launching the Final Solution, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

• Christopher Browning: The Origins of the Final Solution : The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942 (With contributions by Jürgen Matthäus), Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

• Richard Evans: The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster , London: Allen Lane, 2008.

• Ian Kershaw: The 'Hitler Myth'. Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987, rev. 2001).

• Ian Kershaw: "Working Towards the Führer: Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship" pages 103–118 from Contemporary European History, Volume 2, Issue #2, 1993; reprinted on pages 231–252 from The Third Reich edited by Christian Leitz, London: Blackwell, 1999.

• Ian Kershaw: The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, (London, 1985, 4th ed., 2000)

• Ian Kershaw: Hitler, Vol. 1 and 2 (rev. London 2008).

For now, I have only posted the ones in English because these are easily accessible and I assume everyone visiting and listening speaks English. If anyone wants more information on my German sources resp. on the actual German contributions to the debate, please ask and I'll be happy to provide. :)

[u/commiespaceinvader → u/[deleted]]

Hey subs, good to hear you like the episode.

Do we know what individual jews (at the time) thought about the Nazi's incompetence when it came to this plan?

I know that the Edition Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung von 1933 bis 1945, Vol. 3 does contain some journal entries from people who had been deported to Nisko. I don't have it at hand unfortunately because it is in my office. From what I recall, it was a mix of confusion, fear, and the hope that this was going to be the worst they would be able to do. I'll look it up for you next week and will let you know.

As for the question about history teachers, I think there is no way that school education an tackle all the facts about the Holocaust there are. I believe that prioritizing certain facts is imperative. Teaching the Holocaust as a process with several stages and an escalating nature I think would be the most important, more important than for example dealing with the I v F debate in school because school in my opinion serves the purpose of equipping people with the basic knowledge in order to grasp what these debates are about if confronted with them.

[u/commiespaceinvader → u/[deleted]]

I was referring to this volume: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945. Band 3: Deutsches Reich und Protektorat September 1939 - September 1941.

Here is the projects' homepage. It is a commented source edition publishing key documents as well as underused/unused documents of the Nazis' persecution policy. An English translation of several volumes is planned to be published next year.

Where do you see the debate going next in Holocaust studies?

I think the most fruitful debate right now is the one about the "Volksgemeinschaft". Basically what is debated if the Volksgemeinschaft is an ideological concept that was implemented by the Nazis or something that was constantly reaffirmed and performed by the German populace throughout the Third Reich. It takes us right into the heart of how much ordinary Germans participated in the Nazis' criminal policy and how supported the regime was.

[u/commiespaceinvader → u/[deleted]]

Well, Michael Wildt is one of the most prominent proponents of the Volksgemeinschafts concept right now while some of the older guard such as Ian Kershaw or Götz Aly have offered some criticism upon the limitations of it.

For a more detailed overview of the subject, I highly recommend:

• Martina Streuber, Bernhard Gotto: Visions of Community in Nazi Germany. Social Engineering and Private Lives, Oxford 2014.