HISTORY OF EUROPE:

BUILDING
CONTEMPORARY
EUROPE
16. The Holocaust
 Field Study task 2:
Tracing the Second World War in Barcelona

due Mon 18 March

S.17 – Wed 13 March: WW2:
´Katyn´ -
Wartime and post-war Poland
CA assignment 2: The Holocaust

due today
 Neighbors Watch—and Profit—as Jews Are Deported: one October morning in 1940, Nazi
authorities in the small German town of Lörrach notified Jewish inhabitants that they had two
hours to pack
 1. History of
antisemitism
Historian Raoul Hilberg on the trajectory of
antisemitism throughout history:

"You have no right to live amongst us as

Jews“

"You have no right to live amongst us“

"You have no right to live"

Group exercise:
what is the difference between these forms of antisemitism?
how widely shared was hatred of the Jews in Germany?
Historian Raoul Hilberg on the trajectory of antisemitism throughout
history:
"You have no right to live amongst us as Jews“
i.e. extreme religious hatred: Jews are viewed as religiously
different (and can be one of “us” if they convert to Christianity)

"You have no right to live amongst us“

i.e. extreme ethnic hatred: Jews are viewed as ethnically
different, cannot be one of “us”, need to be segregated
and/or find their own homeland/state

"You have no right to live"

i.e. Jews are viewed not just biologically inferior but are also
“subhuman”: their elimination as a group is seen as natural and
necessary
 "You have no right to live amongst us“
i.e. extreme ethnic hatred: Jews are viewed as
ethnically different, cannot be one of “us”, need to
be segregated and/or find their own homeland/state

Advertisement
Poster for “The
Eternal Jew” from
Austria, c. 1938
historically, Jews
were a vulnerable
minority in largely
Christian Europe

a mixture of
ancestral fears
and new-found
anti-Jewish
hostilities
Jews were in the early 20thC also identified with all
sorts of movements: Communism, exploitative
capitalism, internationalism, etc

- foreign, dangerous
and unclean – why?
- the figure in this picture
is easily identified as an
antisemitic
caricature: a large
nose, heavy eyebrows,
long beard, and dress
meant to reference
supposedly
traditional Jewish
styles of dress
- physically unfit
- greedy and money-
obsessed
- Communist traitors
(based on the belief
that “all Communists
were Jews”)
 Nazi regime: state-organized extreme ethnic hatred of
Jews, with Hitler personally as the main driver
 was this widely shared?
 Nazi race theory convinced few Germans: antisemitism had not been a
particularly significant vote-winner for the Nazis (before 1933)
 how many actively supported & participated?
 why did they do so? combination of hatred, jealousy, revenge,

indoctrination, career advancement, “just doing my job”

 majority response was one of indifference & passivity – why?
 most didn´t condemn persecution, didn´t help Jews, deferred to state

authority, afraid, social pressure (not wanting to stand outside the

group)
 rare few: helped Jews
 examples from German-occupied lands (such as Denmark, Italy, the

Netherlands, Belgium)
 “The world is a dangerous place to live in, not
because of the evil done by some, but because of
the many people who just sit and let it
happen” (Albert Einstein).

 “ordinary people from a society not unlike our

own”
2. Nazi race theory, racial policy & Holocaust
against the background of WW2
 what were Nazi Germany´s war aims?
 why was the human cost of WW2 several times higher
than that of WW1?
 why was this about more than undoing the Versailles
Treaty?
 how was Nazi Germany far more radical in their war
aims than Germany´s leadership in WW1?
• the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime: 5-6
million died – 2/3 of Europe´s Jewish
population – unprecedented in history
• the non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime?
 the non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime:
 resettlement of natives from Poland for ethnic Germans
 one of the largest systems of forced labour in history for targetted
workers from Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic states and Western
Russia
 programs of starvation in camps for Russian POWs
 reprisal campaigns against civilian resistance
 approx. 5 million non-Jewish civilians died in these campaigns
 Nazi Germany´s war aims: conquest & colonization (directed
especially against the Soviet Union): planned large-scale extraction of
natural resources and raw materials + forced labour on local
populations
 unprecedented in history in scale
 methods and tactics of extractivist colonialism practised by
Europeans in Africa & Southeast Asia transferred to Eastern Europe
3. How do we get from 1935 (the
Nuremberg race laws) to 1942
("The Final Solution")?
As history students we are interested in
uncovering the historical development of the
Holocaust. In other words, how do we get
from 1935 (the Nuremberg race laws) to
1942 ("The Final Solution")?
Why is it important to investigate the exact
sequence of events?
Is it a straight line?
 Timeline of the Holocaust - exercise

 1. race laws Nuremberg, 1935 - marking,

isolating, segregating groups and depriving them
of their livelihood
 2. Nov 1938 Kristallnacht – forced emigration
of German & Austrian Jews, confiscation of Jewish-
owned property and assets
 3. outbreak of war (1939) – deportation of
Polish and German Jews to ghettoes in occupied
Poland – what purpose did the ghettoes serve?
 Listen to clip from podcast
“Free Thinking: Nazis,
Holocaust, Time and Memory”
(BBC radio, 27 Jan 2015)
David Cesarani, Holocaust
expert

Why does the author say we

don´t really understand the
Holocaust at all?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0506lp0
(2´- 3´50´´)
 4. When and how did the
Holocaust emerge?
Hitler was the main driver
of antisemitism in the Nazi
movement
But:
-did Hitler operate with a
“master plan”, a blueprint for
the Holocaust from early on?
-did the initiative of
systematic murder and
extermination come from
Hitler?
 from deportation to genocide – how did
the goalpost change?

 some historians - intentionalist view:

 Hitler operated with a blueprint & placed
systematic murder of the Jews on the agenda
instead deportation from the outbreak of war
(Sep 1939)
 Hitler´s ´master plan´ of extermination
 Hitler as an omnipotent leader – he took the
initiative
 other historians - functionalist view:
 Hitler had no long-term plan of systematic
murder
 the decision to murder and exterminate the
Jews was the result of ad-hoc decisionmaking
(arrived at bit by bit)
 initiative came from the lower ranks of
competing fanatical Nazi bureaucrats – this is
how dictatorships work!
 striking a balance between both views
 “How the Holocaust
Began” (BBC
Documentary, 2023) –
15 minute extract
 viewing & answering
questions
 class discussion

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8l7af2
What are the key narratives of the Holocaust
about? Where are these histories set?
 Timeline of the Holocaust (continued)
 4. invasion of Soviet Union (June 1941) – Jews of
Soviet territory (eastern Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic
states and western Russia) killed in the “killing fields”
by SS death squads – mass shootings – the so-called
“bullet Holocaust” (2 million Soviet Jews murdered)
 5. “Final Solution” (Jan 1942) – programme in place
to systematically exterminate all Europe´s Jew: creation
of extermination/death camps; deportation of Jews from
Western & Southern Europe to concentration and
extermination camps
 what surprised you most about the documentary?
 do you think there is a lack of public knowledge and understanding about the origins of the
Holocaust?
 are there questions you are interested in following up?
 Soviet Union)
 renewed radicalization of policies after Summer 1941 – German invasion of the Soviet
Union:
 start of local mass killing initiatives by SS killing units against Soviet Jews in Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic
states and Western edges of Russia in Summer 1941 (SS = Nazi Party´s own elite military force)
 these were the initiatives of competing fanatical senior Nazi officials jockeying for influence over
Hitler
 such initiatives got approved and authorized by Hitler: gradually more organized and systematic
killing campaigns against Soviet Jews: “bullet Holocaust” – mass shootings
 plans to deport Europe´s Jews to Russia are shelved because German conquest of Russia faltered
 ultimately, in Jan 1942, idea and plan conceived of extermination units on Polish soil – designed to
exterminate all European Jews: Holocaust – gas chambers & extermination camps
which were the circumstances that facilitated the “bullet
Holocaust” & the idea of industrial-scale mass killing of
Jews?

“Without World War II there

would have been no
Holocaust” (Tony Judt)

 e.g. how the conditions of war allowed extermination to be

pursued like any other secret military operation – screened
away from Germany and the Western public
circumstances & factors that facilitated the
way to the Holocaust:
 German fortunes of war are
 idea of deporting & resettling turning (e.g. entry of US in
Jews no longer practical war & birth of a global
 brutalizing effect of war Alliance against Germany):
against Soviet soldiers – a war Hitler blamed Jews (an
of annihilation: value of international Jewish
human life minimal conspiracy) – further
 widespread complicity of local associated Jews as evil
populations in conquered  German experiences of
Soviet territory (espec. Baltic eutanasia campaigns in
states, Ukraine, Belarus) 1930s & “scientific” killing
 example of mass killings method (gassing in “shower
perpetrated by Soviets in rooms”)
Eastern Poland, Ukraine, etc  a secret military operation in
(1930s-WW2) no-man´s land: genocide can
be perpetrated secretly
 5. The Holocaust as a
“machinery of destruction”

Who is responsible beyond Hitler and Nazi senior officials in

organizing and executing the Holocaust?

What is the “bureaucracy of murder”?

How far does responsibility go within society?

 see map Hitler´s Europe –
which European countries
were not involved?

At its height, the Holocaust depended not simply on soldiers, guards and
executioners but on a vast bureaucratic machinery: bureaucrats, policemen
and railway officials who, shielded by bureaucratic anonymity, clung to the
idea that they merely “did the paperwork”
In German-allied states, satellite states and occupied lands, Germans relied on
the complicity of local (non-German) officials

Study the figures & map – how do you explain these variations?
 6. What, in your view, are the
questions the documentaries don´t
raise or don´t raise sufficiently?
 new historical research
comparing Nazi and Stalinist
crimes:
 similar crimes: wide-
ranging massacre, terror
and deportation plans
 same places: Europe´s
“borderlands”
 two great competing powers
of Central and Eastern
Europe, each dreaming of
land-based empire
 Conclusions
 antisemitism in Germany: from old to
new
 Nazi racial policy extended beyond the
Jews: what was the wider pyramid of
victimization?
 when and how did the Holocaust
emerge?
 the “machinery of destruction”: who
helped make the Holocaust happen?
 why was so little done to try to stop it?