Unit 5: Intentionalist /Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

1. 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

2. 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

3. Victims were vulnerable and powerless • SS = 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

4. Stages of persecution: • Humiliation/persecution through law • Jews 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. Deportation: to the killing centers Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

9. Annihilation • Whole process directed from above, ideologically-driven • Einsatzgruppen were to kill all Soviet political officials or commissars and all Jews • July 31, 1941: Hermann Goerring ordered ReinhardHeydrichto undertake plans for Final Solution in Germany’s sphere • October 31, 1941: all further emigration was banned • October 1941: first German Jewish deportation to East • December 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

10. Functionalist arguments – • Hitler was a weak dictator • Lazy; not take-charge • Hated bureaucracy, legalism • Many orders were verbal (not many memos) • Nazi regime was one of experimentation • Offices & agencies competed against each other for Hitler’s favor • Jewish 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

11. Final Solution is thus generated from below • July, 1941: invasion of USSR • How 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

12. Proofs – • 1933-38: Nazi Jewish policy was in disarray • Not coordinated by any one agency • SS given authority over Kristallnacht • Forced emigration was policy Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

13. 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

14. Madagascar Plan for resettlement • Lublin (Misko) Reservation Plan: deportations into Poland Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

15. 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

16. The Twisted Road To Auschwitz, Littered With Obstacles: • Internal public opinion: most Germans weren’t ready or willing to kill Jews • Solution: intense propaganda • Teachers began racial purity instruction to children aged 6 • Jews portrayed as poisonous mushrooms, etc. • Threat of terror • Gestapo 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

17. External public opinion: • Evian Conference (July 1938): called by FDR after Nazi occupation of Austria • 200,000 Jews in Austria • Delegates 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

18. Physical/moral barrier • Nov. 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

19. SA & SS carried out the violence • 200 synagogues burned in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland • 100 murdered • 30,000 Jewish males deported • 7500 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

20. Human means to carry out the Final Solution • SS: the guardians of the Aryan race • 1939: est. of RHSA (Reich Security Main Office) • Headed by ReinhardHeydrich • Gestapo • Office #IV B-4 was Jewish office, headed by Adolf Eichmann Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

21. 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

22. 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 used • Required 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

23. T-4 Personnel relax after hours Propaganda poster against the mentally and physically handicapped Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

24. Fall, 1941: OdiloGlobocnikis 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

25. 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 apathetic • German High Command was intensely antisemitic Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz

26. Summary:Internal War • Key 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 breed • Many 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

27. External War • War against nearby Slavic enemies (Poland) • War against Great Britain • War against Soviet communists • War against USA • Nazis viewed the US as a racially-diluted, weak, and divided land • Hitler 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

28. 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 ideals • Kill 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 kill • Cover of war made it easier to deceive the victims • Opinions of neutral nations had to be considered • Nazis didn’t want genocide to be used against them as propaganda Unit 5: Intentionalist/Functionalist Debate, and Obstacles on the Road to Auschwitz