Modernity And The Holocaust Analysis

Throughout the course of human history, crimes against humanity have continuously shaped perceptions of civilisation and society. The 20th century was undeniably a pivotal epoch in the development of such atrocities, with the first prosecution for a crime against humanity being the Holocaust. One of the most defining historical atrocities, the Holocaust was the systematic genocide of six million Jews and five million other minority groups enacted by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The responsibility for the conception of the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ is an elusive notion which has been extensively studied and theorised by two schools of thought; the Intentionalists and Functionalists, which both focus on the notion

“Was German ‘Eliminationist Anti-Semitism” Responsible for the Holocaust?” is a fascinating and somewhat discouraging debate that explores the question of whether German anti-Semitism, instilled within citizens outside of the Nazi Party, played a vast role in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust . Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of “The Paradigm Challenged,” believes that it did; and argues quite convincingly that ordinary German citizens were duplicitous either by their actions or inactions due to the deep-seeded nature of anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. On the other hand, Christopher R. Browning, who has extensively researched the Holocaust, argues that the arguments of Goldhagen leaves out significant dynamics which were prevalent throughout most of Western and Eastern Europe during this period of history.

Sven Lindqvist’s “Exterminate all the Brutes” explores the idea that genocides have been deeply rooted in European thinking over the last century. It is written in the form of a travel dairy and a historical examination of European racism over the past two centuries. Lindqvist argues that the harrowing racism that led to the Holocaust in the twentieth century had its roots in European colonial policy of the preceding century. The act of genocide itself is not a new one. When we think of genocide today we think Rwanda and the Holocaust. Genocides have been validated by the idea of racial superiority, colonial expansion and imperialism. The most civilized of men are capable of the most brutal acts.

The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many

     Throughout history the Jewish people have been scapegoats; whenever something was not going right they were the ones to blame. From Biblical times through to the Shakespearean Era, all the way to the Middle East Crisis and the creation of Israel, the Jews have been persecuted and blamed for the problems of the world. The most horrifying account of Jewish persecution is the holocaust, which took place in Europe from 1933 to 1945 when Adolf Hitler tried to eliminate all the people that he thought were inferior to the Germans, namely the Jews, because he wanted a pure Aryan State.

In the last few years, some publications have appeared that treats one group or another, yet the state of our knowledge about the perpetrators remains incomplete. We know little about many of the institutions of killing, little about many aspects of the perpetration of the genocide, and still less about the perpetrators themselves. As a consequence, popular and scholarly myths and misconceptions about the perpetrators abound, including the following. It is commonly believed that the Germans slaughtered Jews by and large in the gas chambers, and that without gas chambers, modern means of transportation, and efficient bureaucracies, the Germans would have been unable to kill millions of Jews. The belief persists that somehow only technology made horror on this scale possible. It is generally believed that gas chambers, because of their efficiency, were a necessary instrument for the genocidal slaughter, and that the Germans chose to construct the gas chambers in the first place because they needed more efficient means of killing the Jews. It has been generally believed that the perpetrators were primarily, overwhelmingly SS men, the most devoted and brutal Nazis. It has been held that had a German refused to kill Jews, then he himself would have been killed, sent to a concentration camp, or severely punished. All of these views, views that fundamentally shape people's understanding of the Holocaust, have been believed as though they were

The investigation assesses the Nazi regime from 1933 – 1945 in regards to the totality of their actions. In order to evaluate the Nazi regime on whether or not they were more evil than other genocidal regimes, the investigation evaluates how the Nazis controlled their country. The investigation will start in the early years of the Nazi regime in how they set up their totalitarian government and how they expanded their control. Then the Holocaust will be looked at for how the Nazis treated those they were exterminating. Accounts from soldiers and Jewish people who lived through the Nazi control will be mostly used to evaluate if the Nazis were more evil than other genocidal regimes. Two of the sources used in this essay, “The Liberation of Dachau” by Chuck Ferree, and “Fate did not let me go” a letter by Valli Ollendorff are then evaluated for their origins, purposes, values and limitations.

The Holocaust can be seen as one of the most devastating genocide that occurred in history and that is well known in many places worldwide. One may assume that those who played a part in the acts done by the Nazis in Germany may have been mentally disturbed and/or sick, evil people. However, the novel Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning provides another alternative to this statement. Browning provides the reader with the idea that anyone is capable of becoming a murderer, especially when the opportunity presents itself. In his book he attempts to prove this statement through multiple ideas and theories and also provides events which took place to analyze some of those ideas.

Antisemitism, the hatred for the Jewish people, has been called the longest hatred in history. This history is deep rooted and has existed for thousands of years, taking different forms throughout its existence, and intensifying up until and through the Holocaust, to then diminish to an extent but still be prevalent in most societies. Antisemitism exists in different forms, religious, ethnic, and political. The presence of Christianity as the predominant religion in Europe can be noted as a driving factor in religious and ethnic antisemitism, as can the Holocaust. Whereas instances such as the Islamic view on Judaism can be

In the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tackles the question of why German citizens engaged in nefarious behavior that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish and other minorities throughout Europe. The question of what drove Germans to commit acts of genocide has been investigated by numerous historians, but unfortunately, no overarching answer for the crimes has yet been decided upon. However, certain theories are more popular than others. Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has expounded that the nature of the German culture before the Second World War was deeply embedded in anti-Semitic fervor, which in turn, acted as the catalyst for the events that would unfold into the Holocaust. It is at this

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 marked the period of the deadly Holocaust in which many atrocities were committed against the Jewish people and minority groups not of Aryan descent. 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.

Throughout time, history has been recorded from the perspective of the victors. It is this bias within the archives that shape the views and motives of the groups involved. As a result of this influence the general way of thinking, and recollection of historical events has been altered to a certain degree to conform to the conqueror’s ideals. Society turns a blind eye to the horrors of the past, preferring to plead ignorance than to face the reality of the cruelty humans are capable of. There are parts in history that conversely cannot be ignored, such as the genocide in Rwanda, 9-11, Terror in Paris and the most historical, the holocaust in World War II, where the true extent of human vindictiveness came to light. In spite

When referring to the ‘Holocaust’ – defined by (Oxford Dictionary) as ‘Destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war:’ – we have to take into account the global awareness and knowledge of that time. We, as a planet, have come to acknowledge the ‘Holocaust’ not as the aforementioned and defined, but as the time in which, between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany, lead by Adolf Hitler, persecuted and massacred approximately six million Jews, as well as a plethora of other individuals, including the mentally handicapped, communists, poles, gypsies, homosexuals (just to name a few), as well as attempting to conquer the world. It is estimated that no less than ten million casualties were a result of the Nazi agenda, out of combat (The History Place). Giving reference to the question, in this essay I will outline and counterpoint two keys questions when regarding the approaches of functionalists and intenationalists, firmly rooting them as the crux as my debate, which are: Did Adolf Hitler have a so-called ‘master plan’ in bringing about the Holocaust, and where did the initiative come from? I will now proceed to open the debate, by first giving a brief outline as both approaches and what they encompass.

“At the beginning of the world,” said the Portuguese Jesuit Manuel de Nóbrega in 1559, “all was homicide.” Blood and Soil focuses on the six centuries since 1400, the period historians term “the modern era.” The main features of modern genocidal ideology emerged then, from combinations of religious or racial hatred with territorial expansionism and cults of antiquity and agriculture. This book charts the slow development of modern genocidal racism against a background of sectarian warfare, ancient models, and worldwide conquest of new territory with accompanying visions of its idealized cultivation. I used this book to further my knowledge on the three main genocides I am studying which are, the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan Genocide. The chapter that were most useful to me were: “The Armenian Genocide: National Chauvinism in the Waning Ottoman Empire”, “Blut und Boden: Germany and Nazi Genocide”, and “From the Mekong to the Nile: Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda”. These chapters provided insightful information on the causes of the genocides and explained the events of the three

The Genocide has been described as a mass killing of people. In which has been occurring since the early nineteenth century. This paper will explain the problems and severity of the Genocide in Germany compared to the Genocide against the Armenians. Like the Jewish, the Armenians also underwent the worst massacre in history. This dialogue goes into detail how the Jewish and the Armenians undergo the same treatment.