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Ordinary Men? “There are many societies afflicted by racism and caught in the siege mentality of war. Everywhere society conditions people to accept authority. Everywhere people seek career advancement. In every modern society bureaucratization and specialization attenuate the sense of personal responsibility of those implementing official policy. Within every social collective the peer group sets moral norms…If the [German] men could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?” (Browning, adapted)
Christopher Browning: “The German invasion and conquest of Poland in September 1939 was an event of decisive importance in the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy toward the Final solution.”
Impact of Polish Invasion • 2 million Polish Jews now in German hands • War constricted possibility of emigration • Numbers were anyway too great for emigration to be offered as a solution • Conquest of Poland sets in motion search for new kind of solution • War also removed inhibitions from the Nazi leadership – the Jew was an integral part of the portrayal of the enemy
Impact of Polish Invasion • Brutalised measures could be rationalised by ordinary Germans as the necessary excesses that accompany war • Foreign reaction could be dismissed as propaganda • German soldiers encountered the much less assimilated Jews of Eastern Europe, and in large numbers.
Lebensraum and Genocide • The search for lebensraum also encouraged radical solutions to the Jewish question. • Germany’s war was seen as akin to the old wars of imperialism • The racial superiority that older European powers experienced was now ascribed to the German attitudes towards Eastern Europe
Lebensraum and Genocide “Poland was …destined to become a “laboratory” for Nazi experiments in racial imperialism” (Browning) Such experiments included lebensraum, ethnic or racial struggle (Volkstumskampf), and the Final Solution to the Jewish question.
When did the killing start? • During 1940 and 1941, Germany continued to try and ‘eliminate’ Jews through emigration, expulsion or deportation. • Eichmann actively assisted German Jews using escape routes through Italy and Lithuania. • German Jews sometimes forcibly expelled westwards – e.g. Oct. 1940, 6,504 to France.
When did the killing start? • However, orders given in August and October 1941 prohibited further Jewish departures from German areas. • 22 June 1941 – Germany invaded Soviet Union • First indiscriminate mass killings of Jews began shortly after • Einsatzgruppen shot and killed half a million Jews on Soviet or Soviet-occupied territory from June to November 1941.
When did the killing start? • By November 1941, preparations underway for special killing centres in occupied Poland. • Thus, the ban on emigration coincided with the transition to systematic mass murder.
Why begin Killing? • Some historians argue that the setting up of the ghettos marks the beginning of actual killing operations, as these were effectively sites of mass death. • Half a million Polish Jews died before systematic mass killing began • However, the Soviet Union presented particular problems
Why begin Killing? • 4 million Jews inhabited Soviet territory • Hitler’s link between Jews and Bolsheviks made them especially dangerous • Hitler’s war against communism was to be a ‘war of extermination’. • Intentionalists argue that the oral order to kill all Jews went out at the same time as the Soviet campaign was planned.
Why begin Killing? • Functionalists first dispute that the ghettos were intended as a method of mass killing • Browning’s research shows that local officials set up ghettos as temporary solutions, and that they hoped to use Jewish labour. • Even Einstazgruppen activity was not part of a planned programme to kill all Jews
Why begin Killing? • The killings were part of a measured escalation growing out of the ideological war against ‘Jewish Bolshevism’. • From targeting Jewish state and communist party officials, it grew to encompass ordinary Jews. • Functionalists argue that the change in policy arose from the failure to conquer adequate Soviet territory
Why begin Killing? • With only a limited eastern dumping ground, local officials resorted to killing – e.g 7 Nov. 1941, a mass shooting of Minsk Jews cleared room for 1,500 deportees from Hamburg. • New deportees were themselves often simply shot on arrival at their destinations (Kaunas, 25-29 Nov., Riga 30 Nov.)
Why begin Killing? • Disagreements about when the killings began reflect the disagreements about the intentional or functional nature of the decision. • The euphemistic nature of much German documentation doesn’t help. • For example, Goering’s famous order to Heydrich, referring to a ‘final solution’, did not define the nature of the solution.
Why begin Killing? • In fact, the order was a supplement to an earlier order (Jan. 1939) which explicitly referred to ‘emigration and evacuation’. • As well as the intentional/functional arguments, some historians prefer to link the Jewish killings with the wider Nazi racial policy.
Why begin Killing? • Such historians refer to the killings of other groups who threatened the Nazi vision of an ideal Aryan Germanic race. • The techniques used to kill Jews had been used by the T4 organisation in 1939-40 against handicapped people. • T4 personnel also heavily involved in slaughtering Jews and Gypsies.
Why begin Killing? “One cannot explain any one of these Nazi killing operations without explaining the others.” Henry Friedlander.
Why begin Killing? • Others explain the holocaust against the background of Nazi Germany’s overall economic and population policies in eastern Europe. • Killing off surplus eastern populations freed the eastern territories for German habitation and economic modernisation. • Most historians dispute this thesis, on the grounds that it fails to identify a distinct hatred towards Jews, which was clearly a feature of Nazi attitudes.
Why begin Killing? • Thus, the question of why the Nazi regime began mass killing of Jews remains unsettled.
