Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate:
Intentionalist arguments –
Hitler was ideologically obsessed with extinction of the Jews
Hitler became fuehrer – the Aryan messiah
Charismatic rule; personalized rule
Racial prophet
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Racial precedent: 1915 Armenian genocide by Turks
Soviet Union: 1929-33 genocide against Russian peasantry to force them onto collective farms
Man-made famine orchestrated by Stalin
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Victims were vulnerable and powerlessSS = defense corps (Schutz Staffer)
Originally began as 250-280 elite guards
Grew to millions of members
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Stages of persecution:
Humiliation/persecution through lawJews kicked out of civil service first“Cold pogrom” = more than 400 laws designed to get Jews out of society
Book burnings in May 1933
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Identification (September 1935)A Jew is anyone with 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents –OR- 2 Jewish grandparents and is married to a Jew –OR- is a practicing Jew at time of Nuremberg Laws
Mixed-race (mischling) qualifications
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Expropriation: robbing Jews of their property
Kristallnacht (1938): Jews forced out of economy
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Concentration: ghettoization
Step before deportation; Jews moved to smaller pockets
Teens in the Warsaw Ghetto
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Deportation: to the killing centers
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
AnnihilationWhole process directed from above, ideologically-driven
Einsatzgruppen were to kill all Soviet political officials or commissars and all JewsJuly 31, 1941: Hermann Goerring ordered Reinhard Heydrich to undertake plans for Final Solution in Germany’s sphereOctober 31, 1941: all further emigration was bannedOctober 1941: first German Jewish deportation to EastDecember 8, 1941: opening of Chelmno (1st killing center)January 20, 1942: Wannsee Conference
Final Solution efforts are put in place
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Functionalist arguments –
Hitler was a weak dictatorLazy; not take-chargeHated bureaucracy, legalismMany orders were verbal (not many memos)Nazi regime was one of experimentation
Offices & agencies competed against each other for Hitler’s favorJewish offices in every dept. (SA, SS, etc.)Hitler liked the competition (Soc. Darwinism)
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Final Solution is thus generated from below
July, 1941: invasion of USSRHow will the Jewish problem be solved?What to do with the Polish ghettoized Jews?
Killing started, then coordinated at Wannsee Conference from above
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Proofs –1933-38: Nazi Jewish policy was in disarray
Not coordinated by any one agencySS given authority over Kristallnacht
Forced emigration was policy
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
November 1939: first Polish ghetto after Nazi invasion (Polish ghettos lasted to 1942, a few to 1943)
Why keep Jews in ghettos for 3 years if you’re going to kill them?
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Madagascar Plan for resettlement
Lublin (Misko) Reservation Plan: deportations into Poland
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Functionalists don’t deny that Hitler was ideologically obsessed
They spread the blame
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
The Twisted Road To Auschwitz, Littered With Obstacles:
Internal public opinion: most Germans weren’t ready or willing to kill Jews
Solution: intense propagandaTeachers began racial purity instruction to children aged 6Jews portrayed as poisonous mushrooms, etc.
Threat of terrorGestapo needed informers and others willing to support their activities
Passivity/apathy of the common man cannot be overlooked
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
External public opinion:Evian Conference (July 1938): called by FDR after Nazi occupation of Austria
200,000 Jews in AustriaDelegates from 32 nations
“Australia does not currently have a racial problem, and does not wish to import one.”
The only nation willing to accept Jews was the Dominican Republic
They’d offered to take up to 100,000 Jews (5,000 actually went)
External successes fueled internal opinion rises
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Physical/moral barrierNov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht
1st major, organized physical assault on Jews
In response to assassination of German diplomat by a Jewish boy (occurred in Paris)
Herschel Grynszpan’s family had been expelled by Germany because they were Polish Jews
Goebbels planned it with Hitler’s approval
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
SA & SS carried out the violence200 synagogues burned in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland100 murdered30,000 Jewish males deported7500 Jewish shops burned and looted$1 billion mark fine against Jews for “instigating” Kristallnacht
After Kristallnacht, direction of Jewish question is given to SS
Rational, bureaucratic, cold-blooded efficiency
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Human means to carry out the Final Solution
SS: the guardians of the Aryan race1939: est. of RHSA (Reich Security Main Office)
Headed by Reinhard HeydrichGestapo
Office #IV B-4 was Jewish office, headed by Adolf Eichmann
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Finding a technical means to commit mass murder
Complaints from einsatzgruppen that killing (shooting) was hard on the nerves
Messy, too
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
T-4 program (the euthanasia program) -Began Fall, ‘39
Exterminate physically and mentally “damaged”By 1945, 400,000 Germans had been forcibly sterilized
Gas chambers came to be usedRequired doctors and nurses, hospital staff to cooperate
Euthanasia program lasted Oct. 1939-Aug. 1941
As a result of protests led by Catholic bishop, Nazis terminated program
70,000-100,000 German were executed by poison gas during the program
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Propaganda poster against the mentally and physically handicapped
T-4 Personnel relax after hours
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Fall, 1941: Odilo Globocnik is ordered by Heinrich Himmler to murder the Jews of Poland
Euthanasia program continued in hospitals, orphanages through lethal injections (mostly using phenol), starvation
Total of ¼ million may have died in the program
Cemetery at the Hadamar Killing Center
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
The army had sworn an oath of allegiance not to Germany, but to Hitler
Question: What would the soldiers do when the einsatzgruppen came and machine-gunned old men, women, children?
In many cases, the Wehrmacht assisted
In most cases, they were apatheticGerman High Command was intensely antisemitic
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Summary: Internal WarKey motive force: racial war/nationalism
1934-39: 350,000-400,000 Germans declared “unfit” and were sterilized
Efforts were made to encourage those of pure Aryan stock to breedMany who had been sterilized were later killed
Euthanasia personnel were sent into camps to weed out the sick and those deemed politically dangerous (some Jews, too)
Internal program against the Jews and German gypsies
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
External WarWar against nearby Slavic enemies (Poland)War against Great BritainWar against Soviet communistsWar against USA
Nazis viewed the US as a racially-diluted, weak, and divided landHitler laid plans to build a huge navy with which to attack the US
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused Hitler to rush to declare war on the US on Dec. 11, 1941
Hitler viewed the French as an inferior Alpine race, but the British of superior Aryan stock
Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz
Personnel who had fought the internal war could now fight the external war (against the Jews of Europe)War provided the Nazis with a cover for what they were doing; why was a cover needed?
Not all Aryans had been “educated” on racial idealsKill away from the prying eyes of civilians
As it went on, more and more Germans got involved, and more and more knew something was happening to the Jews but continued to deny it.Einsatzgruppen used shooting to killCover of war made it easier to deceive the victimsOpinions of neutral nations had to be consideredNazis didn’t want genocide to be used against them as propaganda
