1. Historiography of the Holocaust:
Was the mass murder planned from
the outset?
Planning conference at the
Berghof, July 1940. IWM HU
75542.
2. Intentionalists
• Final Solution was planned from the outset
• Nazi leadership conceived their plan very early
• anti-Jewish program of 1933-1939 points to
coming genocide
• War gave Hitler the pretext
• Anti-Semitism: deep, common, eliminationist
• German colonisation of Eastern Europe
• Hitler gave an order early in 1941
3.
4. Functionalists/Structuralists
• Final Solution developed over time
• Inconsistency and evolution of Nazi policy over time
• Groping toward a solution to ‘the Jewish problem’
• outbreak of WW2 blocked many options
• Mass murder only emerged during OP Barbarossa
• Initial acts of murder are local actions by competitive
officials
• Trail and error in developing systems of mass murder
• Hitler’s decision was taken in spring/autumn 1941
5.
6. Synthesists
• Debate continued from 1960s-late 1990s
• Intentionalists suffered from a lack of
evidence
• But without an ideological motivation, would
the Holocaust have happened?
• Most historians today have taken the best
insights of both positions
7. The Debate
• Key Intentionalists
– Lucy Dawidowicz
– Gerarld Fleming
– Richard Breitman
– Daniel Goldhagen
• Key Functionalists
– Hans Mommsen,
– Uwe Dietrich Adam
– Christopher Browning
– Philippe Burrin
– Martin Broszat
• Key Synthesists
– Yehuda Baur
– Arno Meyer
– Ian Kershaw
– Michael Marrus
8. From why to how…
• Raul Hillberg The Destruction of the European
Jews (1961)
• Exploration of mobilisation of the state
• “the machinery of destruction” engaging an ever
widening circle of perpetrators in the murderous
task
• Popular understandings focus excessively on gas
chambers
• Much of the killing was by firing squads, disease,
and starvation
