functionalism or intentionalism? a study of the evolution ... · to preface the historical study of...

Functionalism or Intentionalism? A study of the evolution of anti-semitic Nazi policy between 1933-1945.

Jacob Rose

Functionalism or Intentionalism?

A study of the Evolution of Anti-Semitic Nazi Policy Between 1933-1945.

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Introduction

Defini&ons

The terms “func0onalist” and “inten0onalist” describe one of the most enduring examples of historikerstreit (historian’s debate) within Holocaust history. Within the framework of an historical 1

narra0ve, there is always a debate between the significance of the willpower and ac0ons of the individual in shaping historical developments – inten0onalism - versus the constraints created by objec0ve, what Kershaw calls, “structural determinants” - func0onalism. In this case, one school argues that the Holocaust should primarily be explained through the decision-making and willpower of Hitler. The other suggests that the entangled structure of the Reich, Hitler’s piMng of departments and agents against one another, and the advocacy of individual, Nazi ideological enterprises (the process Kershaw termed “working to the Fuhrer”) were the dominant factors. 2

This is not a debate about the extent of Hitler’s control of the Third Reich, nor his influence in shaping racial and later extermina0on policy. By the onset of war, and broadly before, Hitler had ul0mate decision-making power over the en0re empire he governed – he was “master of the third Reich”. Instead, it concerns the impulses that drove the policy as it unfolded. Some historians, such 3

as Karl Bracher, argue that Nazism was in a poli0cal sense Hitlerism, and so focus on the importance of this individual in shaping every aspect of German history 1920 -45. Others disagree. For instance, Christopher Browning, in his famous account of the genocide from the perspec0ve of Reserve Police Ba^alion 101 in “Ordinary Men”, argues that the Holocaust became an uncontainable and effec0vely autonomous aspect of the Reich, so that key events oaen took place en0rely independent of Hitler. He bases his thesis on the “normality” of the killers, the desensi0za0on they had suffered, the absence of explicit orders for murder given to Einstanzgruppen before 1941 and the rabid an0-Semi0c climate of pre-Hitler Germany. 4

This study will examine the nature of the most significant an0-Semi0c policy developments in the Third Reich, from 1933-1942. However, to avoid ar0ficial bi-polar analysis, it will only refer to ‘Func0onalism’ and ‘Inten0onalism’ again at the end.

Ian Kershaw, ‘The Nazi Dictatorship – Problems and Perspec0ves of Interpreta0on Third Edi0on’, Edward 1

Arnold 1985, Page.vii

Ian Kershaw, ‘The Nazi Dictatorship – Problems and Perspec0ves of Interpreta0on Third Edi0on’, Edward 2

Arnold 1985, Page. 59

Norman Rich, ‘Hitler’s War Aims’, (2 volumes London 1973-4) Volume 1 Page 207. 3

Christopher Browning, “Ordinary Men – Reserve Police Ba^alion 101 and the Final Solu0on In Poland”, 1992, 4

Harper Collins.

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Hitler’s Programme

To preface the historical study of Hitler’s Reich, one must first study Hitler’s ideology. The documents addressed below provide the core principles of race that underpinned the Nazi state, and are of vital importance as the framework to analyse the ideological mo0ves behind Holocaust development.

Mein Kampf

Wri^en in 1924 whilst serving his sentence in Landsberg prison for his role in coordina0ng the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler wrote his autobiography, explaining his desires of how to rebuild Germany . One 5

of the book’s central themes is his desire to restore the Germanic people to hegemony in Northern Central Europe, an idea that presaged his 1941 declara0on of the ‘New Order’ . 6

Principally, Hitler reduces the human beings to the status of animals in order to explain his racial theory:

I. Hitler makes the dis0nct comparison that interracial human rela0ons are equal to that of biological interbreeding of species in nature. This idea is later echoed in the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws, and is the base jus0fica0on for his idea on preserva0on of blood as “racial purity”. He states that “interbreeding… contradicts the will of nature”.

II. Hitler establishes his theory of a racial hierarchy, the founda0on of his later core differen0a0on and discrimina0on of untermenschen and ubermenschen, declaring the “the higher must not breed with the lower” and condemning miscegena0on as the watering down of Aryan blood, so crea0ng mischlings. 7

III. Further on, Hitler men0ons for the first 0me the importance of preserving the Aryan race, and his hatred for the Jewish press who he believed to be spreading misinforma0on about him. 8

Moreover, Hitler describes the beginnings of his foreign policy programme, wri0ng that the Germanic people “shall have brought all their children together into one state” before the process 9

of expansion into a greater Reich can begin. This concept forms the genesis of his no0on of Lebensraum.

The significance of thes precepts cannot be understated. They demonsrate that Hitler was not simply another an0-Semite. They incorporated both the widespread and popular German na0onalism and an0-Semi0sm, but also Social Darwinism and Hitler’s personal brand of racial doctrine.

Hitler’s revolution;

Adolf Hitler, ‘Mein Kampf, 37th Impression, 2007, Jaico 5

h^p://www.hitler.org/speeches/04-08-33.html6

Adolf Hitler, ‘Mein Kampf’, 37h Impression, 2007, Jaico, Chapter XI, Race and People7

Adolf Hitler, ‘Mein Kampf, 37th Impression, 2007, Jaico, Page 2598

Adolf Hitler, ‘Mein Kampf, 37th Impression, 2007, Jaico, Chapter XI, Race and People9

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1933-34

The ascension of Hitler to Chancellor of Germany in 1933 preciptated a wave of an0-Semi0c legisla0on, with the primary aims being the beginning of the process of social displacement of Jews, and the consolida0on of poli0cal authority within the party, against opposing fac0ons.

For reference in analysis, the main an0-Semi0c pieces of legisla0on enacted in the following months were as follows:

I. March 9th, opening of Dachau Concentra0on Camp

II. March 15th, beginning of two years of on-an-off wave of state-promoted violence against Jews.

III. April 1st, SA-enforced boyco^ of Jewish Stores begins.

IV. April 7th, Law for Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Services bars Jews from gaining new jobs in the Civil service, universi0es and within the state. 10

V. April 26th, Herman Goering founds Gestapo. 11

VI. May 10th, public burning of Jewish books and books unapproved by the state or wri^en by dissidents.

VII. July 14th , Law excluding Eastern European Jews from gaining ci0zenship enacted. 12

Perhaps the most striking aspect of these ini0al an0-Semi0c policies is the fact that they were, in their consequences and 0ming, twinned with dictatorial decrees . For instance, on February 4th, 13

Hitler announced the “Protec0on of German People” law, which banned the public mee0ng of poli0cal opponents to the regime and opposi0on media. This decree allowed Hitler to begin a fierce propaganda campaign in the mainstream German press, while preven0ng the opposi0on press from cri0cising an0-Semi0c legisla0on. The an0-Semi0sm and extreme dictatorial stance that Hitler took 14

were intensified aaer 27 February and the Reichstag fire decree. 15

The legisla0on introduced was varied, with some laws displaying clear cut policy objec0ves, and others being more nebulous. Given the extremely prominent public role Hitler took in the immediate months aaer coming into power, and the oaen unilateral decision-making seen in the Nazi consolida0on of power, there is li^le dispute that most of these decrees came from the high party echelons. However, the role of Hitler personally is neither obvious nor clear-cut. The ques0on which arises is why, if these laws were in fact demanded and planned by Hitler, they were not introduced in one coordinated policy package. There are several possible answers. One reason for the lack of policy clarity is that Hitler, at this point, was s0ll only Chancellor, and fearful of aliena0ng his Conserva0ve

Mar0n Gilbert, ‘The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy’, 1986, Harper Collins, Chapter 2.10

h^p://www.jewishgen.org/Forgo^enCamps/General/TimeEng.html11

h^p://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/0meline.html12

h^p://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/nazi-germany-0meline/13

Mar0n Gilbert, ‘The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy’, 1986, Harper Collins, Chapter 2. 14

h^ps://www.ushmm.org/learn/0meline-of-events/1933-1938/reichstag-fire-decree15

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allies. He did not yet wield sufficient influence or power to enforce clear-cut discriminatory policies which President Hindenburg and the Junker Conserva0ve elite did not support. The second explana0on is external. By the summer of 1933, the Nazi state was under immense interna0onal pressure to relax the already-exis0ng limita0ons on Jews in Germany. The following year, German goods became subject to trade embargos . The Nazi leadership knew that more extreme racist 16

policies were likely to weaken Germany’s posi0on abroad. 17

It is, therefore, possible to argue that ini0a0ng an0-Semi0c policies was likely to endanger Hitler’s hold on power. This, combined with violence of the SA, which was not only condoned, but encouraged by Hitler, is evidence for the argument that at least in the Reich’s early stages, Hitler was both ideologically and prac0cally at the forefront of an0-Semi0c policy. Yet at some points, Hitler also acted to reel in the radical Nazi “revolu0on from below” to avoid losing support from the Conserva0ves. The sinews of the Nazi state and its ability to enforce it own Staatsrecht were not yet complete.

Boyco3 and Violence

The period between late 1934 and November of 1935 saw the beginning of widespread, state-sponsored an0-Semi0c violence, and the SA boyco^ on Jewish establishments.

Immediately following the elec0on on 5 March (where the Nazi party returned their largest majority), the SA (who has worked to monitor elec0ons across Germany and help ensure Nazi victory) began immediate enforcement of an0-Semi0c laws. What followed were hundreds of 18

isolated but popular aâcks on Jewish shops, synagogues, businesses and Jews themselves. The 19

violence of this period was indiscriminate and sporadic. A report by Ralph Busser, the American consul in Leipzig, describes such an aâck on April 5th as being carried out by “uniformed Nazis” who “stormed” a “Jewish prayer house” and beat the Jews within. Five of them were “each compelled to drink one half a litre of castor oil” and have their beards shaven. 20

Although only one example, such aâcks were commonplace un0l late 1934. The key aspect of this violence, however, is the limited role the Nazi leadership and Hitler took in encouraging, let alone coordina0ng it. As 1935 began, the Nazi leadership, who suffered as a result of the failed Jewish-goods boyco^ but the compara0vely successful interna0onal Boyco^ of German goods, began condemning the violence. It is for this reason, and the reluctance of police to prevent the SA or local-party members from con0nuing the boyco^ or enac0ng violent aâcks despite Hitler’s wishes, that 21

few historians dispute that the violence of 1933-34 really was a spontaneous “revolu0on from

J.Noakes and G.Pridham, ‘Nazism 1919-1945 – 1. The Rise to Power 1919-1934’, University of Exeter Press, 16

1983, Chapter 5

Alan Farmer, ‘An0-Semi0sm and the Holocaust’, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998, Chapter 217

Richard J Evans, ‘The Coming of the Third Reich’, Penguin Press, 2004 18

J.Noakes & G.Pridham, ‘Nazisim – 1919-1945 2:State, Economy and Society page 52319

Leêr by US Consul in Leipzig, Ralph Busser, of April 5, 1933, reprinted in Noakes and 20

Pridham, p. 460

h^ps://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/ar0cle.php?ModuleId=1000567821

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below”, as the Nazis claimed. What had started out as a generally state (and Hitler) encouraged violent boyco^, soon became a catalyst for interna0onal outrage that Hitler wanted to end swialy. 22

J.Noakes & G.Pridham, ‘Nazisim – 1919-1945 2:State, Economy and Society University of Exeter Press 1984, 22

Sec0on 393

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After the consolidation of power; the systematic intensification of anti-Semitic

policy;

1935

Nuremberg Race Laws

The Nuremberg Race Laws, announced by Hitler at the Nuremberg party rally on the 15th of September 1935, were the most discriminatory and coherent pieces of legisla0on introduced at this point by the Nazi state, and they echoed directly Hitler’s racial theory that underpinned the Nazi state.

The laws themselves can be split into two main pieces of legisla0on:

a) “Law for the Protec0on of German Blood and German Honour”, a law prohibi0ng interracial marriage between Aryans and Jews.

b) “The Reich Ci0zenship Law”, a precursor to the former defini0vely explaining the various categories of Jews (amended and finalised later in September) and denying them their right to ci0zenship, legally drelega0ng them to “subjects”. 23

Chart issued by the party explaining the law on ci?zenship: 24

J.Noakes & G.Pridham, ‘Nazisim – 1919-1945 2:State, Economy and Society University of Exeter Press 1984, 23

Sec0on 403

h^ps://newspapers.ushmm.org/images/race-laws.jpg24

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The genesis of the Nuremberg Race Laws provides one of the first important examples of the chaos of the Nazi party arguably being a factor in the crea0on of an0-Semi0c policy, with several possible avenues of explana0on.

The first avenue begins with the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, who on 25 July 1935, announced that a law would be introduced to curtail marriages between Jews and non-Jews. At the same 0me, Frick told marriage registrars to postpone all interracial marriage indefinitely. This was 25

then followed up on 4 August with a mee0ng between Frick and Goebbels, Minister for Propaganda, where an agreement was made to request Hitler to ban mixed marriages. The succession of these two events demonstrates how, in the Third Reich, a policy decision made by Hitler is not necessarily one that is drawn from his personal racial theory or even on his immediate agenda.

The formula0on of the policy, however, was not organised un0l the Saturday before the conference , where Hitler at the last minute summoned Bernard Losenher, described as the “Reich 26

Jewish Expert”, to formulate the first draa for Hitler’s speech. This apparent chaos at the heart of 27

the Nazi regime contrasted sharply with the image of the party and its leader being presented to the people of Germany. It also suggests that extremely significant aspects of the evolu0on of an0-Semi0c policy were largely influenced or finalised by external determinants. Furthermore, both Hitler and Losenher were heavily influenced by the leader of the Reich Doctors Associa0on, Gerhard Wagner. This fact alone serves to ques0on whether the Nuremberg laws were in fact underpinned by Hitler’s racial theory, or that of others within the Reich.

However, much of what historians know about Losenher’s last minute summoning to formulate policy and the idea that this demonstrates the chao0c and last-minute nature of the laws’ formula0on, comes from his tes0mony at Nuremberg. Losenher was a staunch an0-Semite on trial for crimes commi^ed as a legislator. Whilst the last minute nature of Losenher’s summoning is well documented, we must also consider the obvious argument that perhaps aspects of his tes0mony contain a-historical and exculpatory claims he concocted in order to minimise his guilt.

A second avenue for the crea0on of the laws presents Hitler even less as a leader who forged the path to extermina0on through his own willpower, but more as an opportunis0c leader who was pressured by his own party membership and radicals. As far back as late 1934, many members of the SA (who now numbered almost 3 million ) had disobeyed the leadership’s a^empt to curb the 28

violence of 1933-34 out of anger of the lack of extreme and coherent an0-Semi0c legisla0on. A Gestapo report argued that without such a piece of legisla0on being produced, soon the lower Nazi and SA membership would begin their own solu0on to the “Jewish Problem… from below that the government would then have to follow”.

With the Third Reich in crisis mode, these soundings from Hitler’s own SA and party membership would have been deeply worrying to him. The stability of the Nazi regime was being undermined. The Race Laws provided Hitler with an outlet to appease party members, and also a legal founda0on

Peter Longerich, ‘Holocaust – The Nazi Persecu0on and Murder of the Jews’, Oxford University Press, 2010 25

Page 57-60


Page 57-60

‘Law for the Protec0on of German Honour and German Blood’ abbreviated27

Richard J Evans, ‘The Third Reich in Power’, Penguin Press, 200528

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for further discrimina0on. Whilst the laws seem on the surface a natural progression from his racial theory in Mein Kampf and clauses 14 and 15 of the party programme, the reality of the genesis of the laws indicates that perhaps Hitler was, at least at this point in the Holocaust’s development, an opportunis0c dictator whose tool for maintaining power included racial discrimina0on.

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Forced emigration of Jews in the Nazi state, Kristallnacht and the state of Judenpolitik by

the outbreak of war;

1933-1939

The Nazi policies of mass expulsion mark a significant turn in the course of Holocaust history. Whilst emigra0on of Jews occurred from the start of the Nazi regime, policies that either put pressure on Jews in Germany, made emigra0on easier or forced Jews to emigrate affected these numbers. The emigra0on aspect of the Holocaust however is a complex one, with no single piece of legisla0on underpinning it or even any one organisa0on within the third Reich. For this reason, my examina0on of it will look at the key events of the emigra0on process, and the organisa0ons and methods involved.

Emigra0on of Jews from Germany reached 37-38,000 immediately aaer the Nazi takeover in 1933. 29

These figures declined gradually over the decade. However, a key event in the emigra0on 0meline occurred on 1 August 1938, with the founding of the Office for Jewish Emigra0on in Vienna. This 30

operated to remove the bureaucra0c red tape prohibi0ng Jews leaving, whilst stripping them of possessions and finances, described in tes0mony by Wilhelm Hoe^l as being like an “automa0c factory”. 31

Hitler had no obvious involvement with the Office, which was a personal ini0a0ve by Eichmann. Upon being sent by SA officials from Berlin to Vienna to aid in the slow emigra0on process, which was being slowed down by harsher migra0on laws introduced by Himmler, Eichmann found the process ea0ng into the Reich’s foreign currency reserves. In response, he pe00oned Reichkommisar Burckel to allow him to set up an organisa0on that would strip the Jews of personal property and all remaining finance in return for emigra0on papers. At this 0me, Hitler was again under immense 32

interna0onal pressure for the maltreatment of Jews seeking to emigrate, and also for his failure to facilitate other countries’ needs at the Evian conference. The bureaucracy that would manage the Holocaust in the war phase; the crea0on of Jewish communi0es to aid in the transporta0on of Jews; the chao0c transporta0on of Jews to concentra0on camps: were all based on Eichmann’s model. In contrast with the Nuremberg Race Laws however, not only the par0culars of the emigra0on process were decided by a func0onary “working toward the Fuhrer”, but also the decision to organise and bureaucra0se it.

Adding complexity to the issue, however, the progression from the Vienna office to a central office serving the en0re Reich was taken by Hitler. Aaer the success of the Vienna project, with 45,000



Page 96

Tes0mony of Wilhelm Hoe^l, one of Eichmann’s associates, at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, h^p://31

www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/index-03.html


Page 102

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Jews having reported to be emigrated by 12 November 1938 , an execu0ve order was given to 33

create a central office in Berlin. This followed the discovery that in order to re-arm under Goering’s four year plan, there would need to be a method of crea0ng vast sums of wealth. The result was a 34

Reich-wide emigra0on format that excluded Jews completely from the economy, and stripped them of their wealth and estates, termed Aryaniza?on. 35

The decision to found the central office was taken by Hitler. Almost certainly the desire to model it on the Vienna model was Hitler’s too. Just as in Mein Kampf, foreign policy (i.e rearmament) was bound up with racial exclusion and expulsion. At the same 0me, Hitler had recently replaced some of the more moderate Nazis with racist hardliners, enabling him to enact such legisla0on with ease (see, for example, the replacement of Werner Von Fritsch as Commander of the armed forces in the Blomberg-Fritsch affair ). Hence, the crea0on of the Berlin office by Hitler was one of the first acts 36

sugges0ng he was planning toward s0ll more extreme goals – through a war of extermina0on.

The now radicalised state of Judenpoli?k, the poli0cal status of Reich Jewry and the poli0cal landscape regarding an0-Semi0c policy can be seen vividly through the terrible medium of Kristallnacht. This pogrom, occurring on the night of the 9-10 November 1938, was the climax of an0-Semi0c policy in the pre-war phase of the Holocaust. The method by which the Nazi state implemented an0-Semi0c objec0ves and the means by which Hitler would coordinate acts of the state during the looming war found their origin here. The tradi0onal yet specula0ve view of Kristallnacht, of an enthusias0c and enterprising Goebels, excited to show Hitler his commitment to Nazism (a poli0cal recovery from his 1937 affair with a Czech actress) taking the ini0a0ve and encouraging pre-exis0ng Pogroms in the Hesse to be expanded and intensified, is unconvincing. This narra0ve disregards the evidence found in Goebels’s Diaries. There it is clear that hours before Goebels’s speech, Hitler proclaimed it was 0me for the Jews to “feel the people’s fury”, in response to the assassina0on of the policy advisor to the Nazi embassy in Paris, Ernst Von Rath. This was 37

then passed down the chain of SD and SA command. However, he did not spell out exactly what was meant by this.

At the same 0me, Hitler was ensuring that official records would not exist, therefore blurring his role for historians – just as he would when the Holocaust entered its final, most murderous stages. This marked change in direc0on from a public figure who made his exact desires clear, to taking a backstage yet certainly execu0ve role can, arguably, warp a historian’s interpreta0on of the Holocaust, sugges0ng it reflected only the influence of “func0ons”. From consolida0ng power, to gaining na0onal support to raising funds for Goering’s 4-year plan – these func0ons can readily be iden0fied. Moreover, in the case of Kristallnacht, the excessive violence and even rape contravened basic Nazi doctrine on sexual separa0on of races – apparently further evidence for its unplanned nature.

The years 1933-1939 can be seen as an experimental period for the Nazi state, laying the founda0ons for further and more extreme an0-Semi0sm. In truth, there is very li^le pa^ern to Hitler’s role. An0-

h^ps://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/media_nm.php?MediaId=46733

Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Knopf, 1991, Page 42634

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, 9 Volumes, Jerusalem (1992-5), chapter vii, page 101 35

Harold C Deutsch, Hitler and his Generals: The Hidden Crisis, University of Minnesota, 1974, Page 356-37036

Joseph Goebbels, Edited by Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Goebbels Diaries, Secker&Warburg, New York, 1978 37

pages 300-400

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Semi0c policy can some0mes be a^ributed to Hitler, an on other occasions, to other members of the party or state. In any event, by 1939, the Jews living in the Reich had been completely removed from German society, had been stripped of economic and social independence, and had become almost mythical hate-figures, the ul0mate an0thesis of the German iden0ty. . In many ways, Hitler’s 38

individual will had forged a Germany that was ideologically acceptable for a Na0onal Socialist State, and simultaneously logis0cally, legally and ideologically ready to embark on a campaign of annihila0on.

Personal Comment, interview with Kindertransport/Holocaust survivor John Fieldsend by Jacob Rose, 38

15/11/15 Oxford.

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The foundations for the ‘War of Annihilation’ 1939-41; ‘Ghettoisation’ and Shootings on the

Eastern Front.

The onset of war ushered in a poli0cal climate in which the Fuhrer’s powers were essen0ally limitless, removed from internal chains inhibi0ng an0-Semi0sm, and interna0onally, all pressures were alleviated. Moreover, in a social sense, the climate of the war accelerated and intensified an0-Semi0c sen0ments amongst the German people, and as Browning illustrates, created a climate of brutality that the leadership could capitalise on to excuse any and all barbarity. The gateway to a war of extermina0on was now open – confirmed by Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag speech prophesysing that if the Jews were to drag Germany into another world war, it would bring about their annihila0on.

First and foremost, the beginnings of the Gheôisa0on process indicate an almost certain involvement of Hitler. This entailed the removal of Jewish and various other “sub-human” races from (ini0ally) urban areas of captured or incorporated territories of the Reich and concentra0ng them in closed, oaen walled and guarded se^lements separate from other popula0ons – these se^lements governed by a “Judenrat”.The first Jewish Gheô, on the outskirts of the town of Piotrkow Trybunalski, was created on 8 October 1939, just 38 days aaer the invasion of Poland. The order to create it was passed down the chain of Command by Reinhard Heydrich, Director of the Reich Main Security Office (a decisive organisa0onal body of the SS under the umbrella command of Himmler) to Hans Drexler (the newly appointed Mayor, who saw to its crea0on using the locally sta0on Orgpolizei baâlion. 39

Whilst, then, there is no direct order or evidence of such from Hitler himself, a historian can interpret this order as being from the mouth of Hitler as it coincided almost perfectly with Hitler’s campaign, da0ng from as early as 23 May of expulsion of Poles from Occupied Poland. The plan for Polish 40

expulsion, which precipitated the forma0on of Gheôs and segrega0on of Jews and poles, follows logically from Hitler’s ideological desire to create the Lebensraum. This doctrine, which was almost a word-for-word fulfilment of pre-power Nazi doctrine covered in the beginning of this essay, manifested itself in rela0on to the Jewish ques0on through Hitler’s authorisa0on of deporta0ons of Jews from Occupied Poland in mid-September . Not only did Gheôisa0on fit Hitler’s prac0cal 41

ambi0ons, but also his ideology. Nevertheless, the problem is lack of documentary evidence. It cannot be proven that Hitler was behind Heydrich’s order. To be sure, it accorded with Hitler’s long-held desire for Lebensraum and his quest for racial purity (by segrega0ng the Jews). It seems reasonable to conclude that the Gheôisa0on decree seems a certain shadow-order of Hitler: the Furher’s inten0onal mechanism to consolidate six ears of an0-Semi0c legisla0on with one radical act.

Nevertheless, the shortage of docuemntary evidence means the order could, hypothe0cally, have been conceived by Heydrich or his superior, Himmler, who himself was both a renowned and poli0cal schemer and a hardline an0-Semite, and would later lead the process of extermina0on. If the order

Down to the Last GheOo, Alexander Zvielli, Jerusalem Post, 201039

Peter Longerich, ‘Holocaust – The Nazi Persecu0on and Murder of the Jews’, Oxford University Press, 2010, 40

page 479

Peter Longerich, ‘Holocaust – The Nazi Persecu0on and Murder of the Jews’, Oxford University Press, 2010, 41

page 143-150

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emanated from Himmler or Heydrich, the ini0al phase of the Holocaust as the event is oaen understood would have lacked Hitler’s agency.

Murder on the Eastern Front.

The culmina0on of the impossibility of “Gheôising” the local Russian (or other) Jewish populace logis0cally, the beginning of what Hitler had termed the “war of annihila0on” in Russia , and the 42

ambiguity of Hitler’s an0-par0san and an0-Communist orders in the seMng of a deeply an0-Semi0c Eastern Europe, led to the beginning of mass shoo0ngs.

The vast majority of these murders were carried out or led by the infamous Einstanzgruppen, para-military units oaen aâched to the advancing German armies or inhabi0ng occupied zones. The baâlions, reffered to as such for simplicity, (created years earlier by Heydrich) saw their first deployment as murderers during the “Opera0on Tannenberg” campaign of liquida0on of Polish intellectuals and Jewish leadership following the country’s occupa0on . 43 44

As the Wermacht advanced into Russian territory, with Einstanzgruppe A moving into Lithuania, the 45

ques0on of what to do with the Russian and Slavic Jewry was lea open ended. The evidence suggests that although Hitler gave no direct order to kill all Jews found, rather only to kill all par0sans and Communists, what emerged was a mix of ini0al shoo0ngs carried out on the orders of baâlion commanders. These commanders, lea with the op0on of leaving possible Judeo-Bolshevik par0sans at large (documents from OsRront generals such as Mannstein and also Hitler designates them as 46

such), and the exis0ng rabid an0-Semi0sm of the popula0ons the Wermacht conquered , lea the 47

baâlion commanders with the obvious op0on of “working to the Fuhrer” and liquida0ng the Jews they came across, in accordance with Hitler’s empassioned “war of annihila0on” rhetoric. Moreover, despite no ini0al recommenda0on of these killings exis0ng as documented evidence, Hitler’s subsequent complicity in the killings and his approval of them is evidenced by the removal of a local army commander, Johannes Blakowitz, despite his exemplary combat record, who protested against the barbity of the killings . 48

What followed this ini0al enterprise, as with many aspects of the Holocaust narra0ve discussed, was Hitler’s use of secret mee0ngs with leaders, in this case most probably Himmler some 0me in August-September, to expand these killings to the en0re populace and order Einstanzgruppen

In a speech given some0me in March before Barbarossa was launched42

Michael Marrus The Nazi Holocaust, Part 3, The "Final Solu?on": The Implementa?on of Mass Murder, 43

Volume 2. Westpoint, CT: Meckler 1989


Page 143-145

The first baâlion created45

Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad, Viking Publishing House, London, 1998, Chapter 346

Auschwitz: The Nazis and ‘The Final Solu0on’, BBC One, 200547

Richard Evans. The Third Reich At War. New York, Penguin, 2008 Pages 20-25 48

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batallions – of which by now there were six- to commit them. The beginning of the murder of the Jews, the shoo0ng process having killed 700,000 by Decemeber, seems to have occurred as a result of the lack of a direct, central plan in the form of orders given by Hitler, and the external influence of the rabid an0-Semi0sm and selfish enterprise of batallion commanders and the local populace – all guided by the well-known doctrinal desires of Hitler.

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1941-42;

The Final Solution

In November 1941, around five sixths of those who would ul0mately perish in the Holocaust were s0ll living. In the same month of the following year, the figure had dropped to around half, and from then on would decline con0nually. What Hilberg termed the oblitera0on of the Jewish race was underway: the transi0on from forced labour and sporadic mass-shoo0ng to systema0c extermina0on.

The central event which set this agenda, the Reich-wide priority to exterminate the Jewish people, was the conference held at a villa on the shores of a bight on the river Havel, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 of January, 1942.

Wannsee

What is most important to a historian when considering the Wannsee conference is the rela0ve unimportance of its minutes and proceedings. Rather, it is the buildup to the conference where most debates on extermina0on were se^led – so that the conference can be viewed as merely a marking point for the securing of extermina0on policy. In fact, the agenda agreed upon at the conference, the “final solu0on to the Jewish ques0on”, was confirmed by Goering’s authoriza0on via an order to Heydrich to formulate a plan entailing this. Mass murder with the inten0on of destroying Jewish 49

communi0es in the east was already in full swing by January 1942, with Estonia declaring itself Judenrein in late 1941, celebra0ng the destruc0on of the country’s 4500 Jews . The minutes 50

themselves, watered down by Eichmann under the orders of Heydrich to contain only formulated numerical plans to be sent to the 30 emissaries present, were full of euphemisms for the looming genocide. Of these, the most important was the use of the word “deporta0on” when this meant, simply, murder . The conference’s main aims were to assert, under primarily Himmler’s (and later 51

Hitler’s) influence, that the Holocaust was to occur methodologically speaking, by means of “forced labour extermina0on” . This key development, deciding the fate of some 5 million men, women 52 53 54

and children, was achieved in a mere 90 minutes of discussion led by Heydrich, without the input of Hitler directly, and would form the framework for the work and death camps that would appear

Christopher Browning, The origins of the Final Solu?on, the Evolu?on of Nazi Jewish Policy 1939-42, 49

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2005

Ibid50

Mark Roseman. The Villa, The Lake, The Mee?ng: Wannsee and the Final Solu?on. London; New York: Allen 51

Lane, 2002.

Christopher Browning, The origins of the Final Solu?on, the Evolu?on of Nazi Jewish Policy 1939-42, 52

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2005

David Ceserani, The Final Solu?on: The Fate of the Jews 1933-194953


Page 300-306

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across Europe in the coming months. Secondly, the conference presented the means by which Heydrich, in the presence of leaders of all ministries in the Reich, would assert total SS control of the process and over the Jewish ques0on – an act that since 1933, Hitler had never done. Therefore, the cri0cal year that requires assessment is 1941, par0cularly the period of October to December.

Formula&on of the Holocaust in 1941

The killings on the OsRront had raged for several months, with the death toll nearing half a million by the beginning of the talks. With hindsight, the evolu0on of the mass-shoo0ngs to the systema0sed extermina0on in the camps system seems inevitable. However, a mul0tude of forces, including the war, the “failure” of Gheôs, the pressure and enterprise of radical Gauleiters (and other rank-members) and Hitler’s will, all brought this outcome about.

The factor that precipitated the change in policy to mass extermina0on was the unexpected and drama0c slow-down of the German advance into Russia. The Wansee conference was itself intended to occur in mid-November, but the Moscow counter-offensive and subsequent turn from the expected rapid conquest of the Soviet Union to a war without an end in sight, destroyed any ambi0ons for Jewish slave-labour integra0on in Generalplanost . With the war now appearing to be 55

long and arduous, logis0cally, the transporta0on of Jews and the en0re slavic popula0on to work in Central Russian and Siberian camps was impossible, as was Heydrich’s envisioned “death by labour” preceding a post-war controlled destruc0on of Jewry. This ini0al factor of the war caused a cataclysmic destruc0on of all preceding theories on how and when the Jews would be removed – as Hitler warned, so that no “germ cell” of Jewry could re-infect a post-war Europe.

Coinciding with the slowing of the war and the forcing of the SS’s hand in the Jewish ques0on to change policy, were the growing problems of the gheôs. Local SS baâlion leaders and Orgpoleizi commanders complained up the chain of command of the rife problems of crime and lack of law-and-order in them. There was fear that the condensed atmosphere and the gheôs’ par0cular inhabitants (Jews, criminals, poli0cal agitators and par0sans) had engendered hotbeds for resistance movements. Moreover, disease was rife in the gheôs, with typhus outbreaks, starva0on and overworking leading to a 20% mortality rate, and the bodies of the dead were seldom dealt with in a sanitary manner and oaen lea to rot. Par0cularly worrisome for local SS commanders was the spreading of disease “over gheô walls”. The culmina0on of these problems created an unignorable pressure on the Nazi leadership. This was exploited by some of the hardline racist local leadership who, knowing full-well of the atroci0es in the East, would have longed for a similar solu0on – namely Hanz Frank and Odilo Globocnik . Moreover, the pressure applied by the regional leadership was 56

not just restricted to func0onal desires, but ideological drive. “We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them”. These words of General Governor Hanz Frank, echoed by Gauleiters Buhler and Meyer , provide examples of this pressure from below to ini0ate mass-murder of the OsRront 57

Mar0n Gilbert, ‘The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy’, 1986, Harper Collins, Chapter 2.55


Harper Collins.


Page 308

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scale in Poland. Moreover, all this coincided with their demand for ‘prelimary measures’ , a demand 58

that by February had resulted in the near-complete construc0on of the Belzec death-camp and the experimenta0ons with methane gas. Here were mul0ple func0onal elements of the Final Solu0on’s impetus.

Yet as with all Holocaust history, it was Hitler who provided the ideological framework and facilitated the progression to the death-camp phase. First and foremost, Hitler’s pre-Barbarossa prophesy to “destroy the Jewish peoples” given the onset of a world war was open for fulfilment in the eyes of the Reich aaer the declara0on of war on the US in December. Whilst to an historian, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt in that the likelihood is that the order was more an enthused encouragement to con0nue the killings in the east, it nevertheless provides a perfect example of the known rhetoric and ideology of Hitler driving SS officials to innovate in the name of extermina0on and “work to the Fuhrer”. Even more compelling evidence of Hitler’s involvement in formula0ng a plan for a final solu0on characterised by systema0sed extermina0on was his order, given verbally to SS leaders, to begin to phase out the forced labour element in all places outside of the work-camps . 59

This decision inevitably provided the pre-requisite for the beginning of some form of mass-extermina0on, as unemployed Jews were in the paraphrased words of Hitler, simply “more mouths to feed”.

To bring the story of Wansee full circle, these factors pressing on the leadership and Hitler to formulate a concise, codified plan for the extermina0on of European Jews coincided with the unequivocally certain order given to Goering to authorise Heydrich and the SS to do just that. The process of mass-shoo0ngs in the Eastern Front had lea young men demoralised. In Browning’s masterpiece, Ordinary Men, Himmler and Hitler saw the requirement to create a more humane and less sporadic method of killing in order to preserve the sanity of young German-blooded men of 60

the Reich. Thus, the hegemony that the SS asserted over the process at the conference was the final piece in the jigsaw. From this point, with the construc0on in 1942 of Belzec, Madjanek and Auschwitz II to name a few camps, the annihila0on of European Jewry as many know it began.

Hitler’s Role

A euphemism used by the men for death camps, ‘preliminary’ in reference to the original plan for post-war 58

genocide


Page 318


Harper Collins.

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From Hitler’s seizure of both the party in 1920 and of power thirteen years later, un0l the summer of 1942, he presided over the progression of a state bound by his basic doctrine of racial supremacy of the Ubermenschen. According to Nazi ideology, the Holocaust was Hitler’s greatest achievement, crowned thus by his own declara0on during the later years of the war, when the Third Reich began to stare at defeat. Throughout this essay I have abstained from using the terms ‘Structuralist’ or ‘Func0onalist’ or ‘Inten0onalist’ – the terms providing the framework for age-old historiographical debate over structure versus agency in historical change. The fundamental problem with these terms is their bi-polar and ar0ficially reduc0ve nature. As modern historiography suggests, to use the two terms and therefore group the progression of the Holocaust into one of the two camps reduces all of the history to restric0ve binary models. As the evidence I have presented clearly demonstrates, at no single point in the Holocaust, let alone in an overall sense, is the evolu0on of an0-Semi0c policy either the result of the will and direc0on of Hitler alone, nor or func0onal influences arising from the entangled and chao0c Reich structure. The ques0on is raised by some historians as to whether these terms are even applicable to the Holocaust at all, and whether it is incorrect to historicise the Holocaust as merely another aspect of historical progression.

Broadly speaking, the dis0nct moments in the 9 years of Reich history discussed here, where the historian can iden0fy changes in policy direc0on or method, can be explained by several historical mechanisms. First and perhaps most rarely in an acute sense, is the direct imposi0on of policy direc0ves or goals by Hitler. One example is the centralisa0on of the emigra0on process, where Hitler’s direc0ve made the forced deporta0on and requisi0on of Jewish property a na0on-wide mandate. At other 0mes, the development of the Holocaust can be explained simply through the eyes and ac0ons of enterprising members of the Reich and party. These historical agents fall into two categories; the office-drone bureaucrats, driven by a sense of duty and the desire to be^er their own posi0on, such as Eichmann and Losenher, or hard-line an0-Semites who exploited the structure of the Reich and ambiguous policy direc0ves to fulfil their own ideological desires, such as Wagner and Globocnik. At the centre of these two extremesare those “working to the Fuhrer”: the agents or ins0tu0ons of the Reich, driven by a mul0tude of self-interested factors, ac0ng without explicit orders or Hitler’s personal guidance. Throughout all of the Holocaust’s history, the doctrine of Hitler was always publically clear and hegemonic. In all aspects, Nazism was Hitlerism.

Whilst it is, given the evidence of the Holocaust’s chao0c and oaen illogical and unexpected development, unlikely that Hitler had planned the Holocaust from the seizure of power, the prospect of Jewish annihila0on en0ced him all the same. The Holocasut did not begin in 1942, but in 1933. Although It is not the role of the historian to entertain counter-factual “what ifs”, without Hitler, there would not have been a Holocaust. Unlike his procedure, Hitler’s ideology did not develop and radicalise with the Holocaust, it drove it. Hitler’s personal brand of an0-Semi0sm, pan-German na0onalism and racial Darwinism was dis0nct from most others within Germany and all of Europe. Whilst some structural historians may argue that Hitler became a disciple of the Holocaust as it developed, this is simply not true. Hitler’s ideological brand gained him the following of the func0onal elements that allowed for the Holocaust to occur; he was the enabling factor for all agents in the Holocaust. The ideological guidance of Hitler, in place of the absence of his direct willpower and ac0on, drove the Holocaust from the very first a^acks that took place in Berlin on 30 January 1933, when he was proclaimed Chancellor. The common trait of all structural elements of the Holocaust is that aaer endeavouring some new form of an0-Semi0sm, they looked to Hitler for his approval and encouragement, which was oaen given.

In short, Hitler was the most powerful driving factor in the development and very existence of the Holocaust, but he did not and could not have driven it without the enterprise of others striving

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toward his ideology. “Working to the Fuhrer” does not jus0fy the “Func0onalism” interpreta0on, nor does Hitler’s ideological drive jus0fy the “Inten0onalism” school, neither of the terms suffice to explain the complexity of the Holocaust’s evolu0on.

Hitler’s formula0on of a poli0cal system that allowed the Holocaust to thrive, his poli0cal intrigue and fundamental ideology facilitated and engendered the Holocaust. The young men who loaded Jews onto ca^le-trains, the SS who forced the Sonderkommando to haul the corpses of their families from the crematoria, and the Einstanzgruppen who sent villages tumbling into mass-graves, did so because of the Reich’s ideological framework of Hitlerlism.

Bibliography

Adolf Hitler, ‘Mein Kampf, 37th Impression, 2007, Jaico

Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Knopf, 1991,

Alan Farmer, ‘An0-Semi0sm and the Holocaust’, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998

Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad, Viking Publishing House, London, 1998

Auschwitz: The Nazis and ‘The Final Solu0on’, BBC One, 2005

Christopher Browning, The origins of the Final Solu0on, the Evolu0on of Nazi Jewish Policy 1939-42, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2005

Christopher Browning, “Ordinary Men – Reserve Police Ba^alion 101 and the Final Solu0on In Poland”, 1992, Harper Collins.

David Ceserani, The Final Solu0on: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949

Down to the Last Ghe^o, Alexander Zvielli, Jerusalem Post, 2010

Harold C Deutsch, Hitler and his Generals: The Hidden Crisis, University of Minnesota, 1974

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h^p://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/nazi-germany-0meline/

h^p://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/0meline.html

h^p://www.hitler.org/speeches/04-08-33.html

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h^p://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/index-03.html

h^ps://newspapers.ushmm.org/images/race-laws.jpg

h^ps://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/media_nm.php?MediaId=467



Ian Kershaw, ‘The Nazi Dictatorship – Problems and Perspec0ves of Interpreta0on Third Edi0on’, Edward Arnold 1985

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Pridham

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Richard J Evans, ‘The Third Reich in Power’, Penguin Press, 2005

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, 9 Volumes, Jerusalem (1992-5), chapter vii, page 101

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functionalism or intentionalism? a study of the evolution ... · to preface the historical study of...

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