The question of the origins of the Holocaust has been studied by scholars using several differing approaches. These interpretations are outlined by Donald Niewyk in The Holocaust as the long history of European anti-Semitism, the charismatic personality of Adolf Hitler and the influence of modern “scientific” racism or eugenics. These interpretations are illustrated in the works of John Weiss, Ian Kershaw, and Henry Friedlander. Niewyk uses Weiss to identify the interpretation of ancient anti-Semitism located throughout Europe as the origin of the Holocaust. He uses Ian Kershaw’s argument that Adolf Hitler’s unique leadership was the ultimate catalyst for the Holocaust and employs Henry Friedlander’s biological racist ideology to illustrate the main interpretations surrounding the origins of the Holocaust. Although Niewyk presented these interpretations in depth, his criticisms of Weiss's long history approach and Friedlander’s scientific interpretations are flawed. In reaction to Weiss’s argument, he proposes the question, “If Germans harbored such intense loathing for the Jews, why were no substantial steps taken against them before Hitler came to power in 1933?” Friedlander’s argument is met with the supposition that “only the Jews were singled out by the Nazis for total annihilation and warn against anything that might detract from the particular dimensions and characteristics of the Jewish tragedy.” The problems with these critiques are that Niewyk ignores Germany's previous attempts at sterilization legislation in 1923 and the influence of foreign eugenic legislation and restrictions on the Nazi government. He also pays little attention to the evidence that shows the Nazi regime also strategically targeted individuals... ... middle of paper ... ...eiss, “Anti-Semitism Through the Ages” Ed. By Donald Niewyk, The Holocaust: Problems in European Civilization (Boston, Massachusetts:Wadsworth, 2011), 12. “Police decree on identification of Jews, 1 September 1941” Ed. By Stackelberg and Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: an anthology of texts. (New York: Rutledge, 2002), 154 Harry Friedlander, “The Opening Act of Nazi Germany” Ed. By Donald Niewyk, The Holocaust: Problems in European Civilization (Boston, Massachusetts:Wadsworth, 2011), 45. “Minutes of the Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942” Ed. By Stackelberg and Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: an anthology of texts. (New York: Rutledge, 2002), 345. “Minutes of the Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942” Ed. By Stackelberg and Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: an anthology of texts. (New York: Rutledge, 2002), 348. Niewyk, The Holocaust, 10.
Gellately, Robert. “The Gestapo and German Society: Political Denunciation in the Gestepo Case Files.” Journal of Modern History (The University of Chicago Press) 60, no. 04 (December 1988): 654-694.
Shields, Jacqueline. "Concentration Camps: The Sonderkommando ." 2014. Jewish Virtual Library. 20 March 2014 .
Goldhagen's book however, has the merit of opening up a new perspective on ways of viewing the Holocaust, and it is the first to raise crucial questions about the extent to which eliminationist anti-Semitism was present among the German population as a whole. Using extensive testimonies from the perpetrators themselves, it offers a chilling insight into the mental and cognitive structures of hundreds of Germans directly involved in the killing operations. Anti-Semitism plays a primary factor in the argument from Goldhagen, as it is within his belief that anti-Semitism "more or less governed the ideational life of civil society" in pre-Nazi Germany . Goldhagen stated that a
Bard, Mitchell G. The Complete Idiot's Guide to world War II, Macmillan Publishing, New York, New York, 1999
Prisoners and concentration camps A. The Gestapo and the Thought Police B. Disappearance and re-education of people C. Concentration and extermination camps
Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.
Botwinick, Rita Steinhardt. A History of the Holocaust. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.
Through the course of history, the Jewish people have been mistreated, condemned, robbed, even put to death because of their religion. In the Middle Ages, they were forced to wear symbols on their clothing, identifying them as Jews. The dates 1933 to 1945 also marked the period of the deadly Holocaust in which many atrocities were committed other minority groups. Six million innocent Jews were exterminated because of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” This paper will exhibit how Adolf Hitler used the three anti-Jewish policies written in history, conversion, expulsion, and annihilation to his advantage which Hitler also used against the Gypsies.
FDR and the Holocaust by Verne W. Newton provides a basis for scholarly discourse for the Hyde Park Conference of 1993. The book includes essays, articles, and chapters from different scholars specializing in the Holocaust and Roosevelt in which they examine FDR’s response to the Holocaust. The first chapter of the book is a summary of the participants’ remarks of the “Policies and Responses of the American Government towards the Holocaust,” which was prepared by rapporteur J. Garry Clifford. The objective of the conference was to determine through discussion whether or not the controversy over the Roosevelt administration’s response to the Holocaust was correct. Following this chapter, the first section of the book is filled with essays, articles, and chapters submitted by participants at the conference. The second section of the book includes papers by historians who were not participants at the conference, but whose contributions are relevant to the issues discussed. The articles written by the scholars throughout the book look at the policies between 1933 and 1942, addressing the critiques of FDR and his failure to stop the genocide of the Jewish community in Germany. The overall book not only looks at the rescue efforts during the war and the possibilities for future research and analysis, but also supplies a definitive resource for a pivotal time in United States history.
When approaching the topic of the Holocaust, historians often become concerned with uncovering the motivations of the perpetrators. Two particular historians, Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen, hold views that are fundamentally opposite. Goldhagen directly challenges Browning’s postulation that the murderers of the Jews were not all fanatical and murderous Nazi’s, by arguing that Germany had a very strong cultural history of anti-Semitism that ultimately moved many German people to murder Jews. The two historians appear to disagree in two major significant areas of the historical interpretation of the Holocaust – the first being their assessments of the role of anti-Semitism in German history and the second being their assessments of the motivations of the German men who ultimately carried out the murders during the Holocaust.
Created this issue that, frankly caused historians from the 1960s till the 1990s to empathize and focus primarily on the persecution of the Jews under the Nazi regime. Therefore, as a result of this historians, like Kershaw (1991) and Niemeyer (1978) fell into constructing a very narrow and apocalyptic (or “relativist”) analyse
The Web. 05 May 2014. The “History Learning Site”. Propaganda in Nazi Germany.
Bard, Mitchell G., ed. "Introduction." Introduction. The Holocaust. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001.
Zink, Harold. (1957) The United States in Germany, 1944-1955 [online]. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand [cited 12th September 2011]. Available from:
Anti-Semitism reached to extreme levels beginning in 1939, when Polish Jews were regularly rounded up and shot by members of the SS. Though some of these SS men saw the arbitrary killing of Jews as a sport, many had to be lubricated with large quantities of alcohol before committing these atrocious acts. Mental trauma was not uncommon amongst those men who were ordered to murder Jews. The establishment of extermination camps therefore became the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”, as well as a way to alleviate the mental trauma that grappled the minds of Nazi soldiers. The following essay will examine various primary and secondary sources to better illuminate the creation, evolution, practices and perpetrators of the extermination camps wherein the horrors of the Holocaust were conducted.