Chapter 3 the ISSUE of the HOLOCAUST AS a UNIQUE
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Communism That a Few Years Ago Was Unthinkable
Norbert Frei and Dominik Rigoll, eds., Der Antikommunismus in seiner Epoche. Weltanschauung und Politik in Deutschland, Europa und den USA. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2017. 267 pages. ISBN 978-3-8353-3007-8 In the last few years, we have observed a growth of historiographic research on anti- communism that a few years ago was unthinkable. Arising from research into transnation- al anticommunist networks, the collection of essays here reviewed documents the results of a symposium held at the Jena Center 20th Century History and the Imre Kertész Kol- leg, which took place in November 2014.1 The fourteen papers, some written in German and some in English, are structured into three parts. They examine the genesis, the impact and the meaning of anticommunism as an ideological worldview in Germany, Europe and the United States. In the preface to the collection, one of its editors, Norbert Frei, says that the focus of the work is to explore how anticommunism became the common political denominator of certain institutions, individuals and political parties. What made anticommunism a popular lens with which to view so many political, social and cultural issues in the twentieth century? What linked and what distinguished the anti-Bolshevism that followed Russia’s 1917 revolution from Cold War anticommunism (p. 8)? The opening paper by Anselm Doering-Manteuffel is separate from the three parts of the book that follow it. The author discusses the stabilizing effect anticommunist mobi- lization had on its adherents, which stemmed from their fear of economic and political revolution. Doering-Manteuffel seeks to integrate the philosophy of anticommunism into the history of ideas. -
The Obedience Alibi Milgram 'S Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered
David R. Mandel The Obedience Alibi Milgram 's Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered "Unable to defy the authority of the experimenter, [participantsj attribute all responsibility to him. It is the old story of 'just doing one's duty', that was heard time and again in the defence statement of the accused at Nuremberg. But it would be wrang to think of it as a thin alibi concocted for the occasion. Rather, it is a fundamental mode of thinking for a great many people once they are locked into a subordinate position in a structure of authority." {Milgram 1967, 6} Abstract: Stanley Milgram's work on obedience to authority is social psychology's most influential contribution to theorizing about Holocaust perpetration. The gist of Milgram's claims is that Holocaust perpetrators were just following orders out of a sense of obligation to their superiors. Milgram, however, never undertook a scholarly analysis of how his obedience experiments related to the Holocaust. The author first discusses the major theoretical limitations of Milgram's position and then examines the implications of Milgram's (oft-ignored) experimental manipula tions for Holocaust theorizing, contrasting a specific case of Holocaust perpetration by Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police. lt is concluded that Milgram's empirical findings, in fact, do not support his position-one that essen tially constitutes an obedience alibi. The article ends with a discussion of some of the social dangers of the obedience alibi. 1. Nazi Germany's Solution to Their J ewish Question Like the pestilence-stricken community of Oran described in Camus's (1948) novel, The Plague, thousands ofEuropean Jewish communities were destroyed by the Nazi regime from 1933-45. -
Martin Heidegger on Humanism 8
Alon Segev Thinking and Killing Alon Segev Thinking and Killing Philosophical Discourse in the Shadow of the Third Reich ISBN 978-1-61451-128-1 e-ISBN 978-1-61451-101-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2013 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: Frank Benno Junghanns, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Foreword The motivation for writing this book began with my, one might say, naïve belief that critical thinking could have avoided the rise of the Third Reich and the Shoah in World War II. The main culprits were put on trial in Nuremberg, and then came the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and the Auschwitz trials in Germany. Later on, the compliancy of Heidegger, Gadamer, and others with the Nazi regime was exposed by prominent scholars.1 Thus, the personal and public reputations of Heidegger, Jünger, Schmitt, Gadamer and others were destroyed and then partly rehabilitated. Their teaching, which was essential in consolidating and promulgating the Nazi world-view and in creating and designing the atmosphere of support for the Nazi movement, has, however, mostly remained untouched and continues to be uncritically studied and referred to. As Alain Finkielkraut writes: As Jankélévitch has rightly noted, the extermination of the Jews “was doctrinally founded, philosophically explained, methodically prepared by the most pedantic doctri- narians ever to have existed.” The Nazis were not, in effect, brutes, but theorists. -
What Do Students Know and Understand About the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools
CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Stuart Foster, Alice Pettigrew, Andy Pearce, Rebecca Hale Centre for Holocaust Education Centre Adrian Burgess, Paul Salmons, Ruth-Anne Lenga Centre for Holocaust Education What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Cover image: Photo by Olivia Hemingway, 2014 What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools Stuart Foster Alice Pettigrew Andy Pearce Rebecca Hale Adrian Burgess Paul Salmons Ruth-Anne Lenga ISBN: 978-0-9933711-0-3 [email protected] British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permissions of the publisher. iii Contents About the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education iv Acknowledgements and authorship iv Glossary v Foreword by Sir Peter Bazalgette vi Foreword by Professor Yehuda Bauer viii Executive summary 1 Part I Introductions 5 1. Introduction 7 2. Methodology 23 Part II Conceptions and encounters 35 3. Collective conceptions of the Holocaust 37 4. Encountering representations of the Holocaust in classrooms and beyond 71 Part III Historical knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust 99 Preface 101 5. Who were the victims? 105 6. -
A Historiography of Fascism
History in the Making Volume 6 Article 5 2013 A Historiography of Fascism Glenn-Iain Steinback CSUSB Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making Part of the Political History Commons Recommended Citation Steinback, Glenn-Iain (2013) "A Historiography of Fascism," History in the Making: Vol. 6 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol6/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in History in the Making by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Articles History Department’s 2013 Faculty Choice Award A Historiography of Fascism By Glenn-Iain Steinback Abstract: A long-standing historical debate revolves around the definition, fundamental nature and historical constraints of the concept of fascism. A wide array of scholarly questions about the political and ideological nature of fascism, the minimum or necessary traits of a fascist movement, arguments over the classification of semi-fascist groups and the concept of generic fascism characterize this debate. The result is a substantial body of scholarly research replete with competing theories for the evolution and origin of fascism as a concept, of individual fascist movements and even over the geographic and temporal application of the term itself within history. This paper is a historiography of fascist studies that illuminates the development of the scholarly narrative and understanding of fascism. Beginning with the historically contemporary Marxist perceptive of fascism, this paper examines competing and complimentary understandings of the phenomenon across the twentieth century, including various theories for the evolution of fascism in Europe, the relationship to and placement of fascism in the broader political spectrum, and the debate over fascism as a form of political religion. -
Introduction After Totalitarianism – Stalinism and Nazism Compared
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89796-9 - Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick Excerpt More information 1 Introduction After Totalitarianism – Stalinism and Nazism Compared Michael Geyer with assistance from Sheila Fitzpatrick The idea of comparing Nazi Germany with the Soviet Union under Stalin is not a novel one. Notwithstanding some impressive efforts of late, however, the endeavor has achieved only limited success.1 Where comparisons have been made, the two histories seem to pass each other like trains in the night. That is, while there is some sense that they cross paths and, hence, share a time and place – if, indeed, it is not argued that they mimic each other in a deleterious war2 – little else seems to fit. And this is quite apart from those approaches which, on principle, deny any similarity because they consider Nazism and Stalinism to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet, despite the very real difficulties inherent in comparing the two regimes and an irreducible political resistance against such comparison, attempts to establish their commonalities have never ceased – not least as a result of the inclination to place both regimes in opposition to Western, “liberal” traditions. More often than not, comparison of Stalinism and Nazism worked by way of implicating a third party – the United States.3 Whatever the differences between them, they appeared small in comparison with the chasm that separated them from liberal-constitutional states and free societies. Since a three-way comparison 1 Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London: HarperCollins, 1991); Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, eds., Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Henry Rousso, ed., Stalinisme et nazisme: Histoire et memoire´ comparees´ (Paris: Editions´ Complexe, 1999); English translation by Lucy Golvan et al., Stalinism and Nazism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004); Richard J. -
Yehuda Bauer
1 Shoah, Antisemitism, War, and Genocide: Text and the Context Yehuda Bauer Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues and Friends, The International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, was founded by the then Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, as an answer to a problem that was expected to be solved within a few years’ time, namely the lack of education. There had been worrying signs of a lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among Swedish youths, but there was also disillusionment with democracy generally. Mr. Persson’s government began the process of establishing, with government help, an independent, special, large organization called Levande Historia, to address the educational aspects of steps to be taken to remedy the situation. I was asked to advise in all this. In order to establish the ITF, the Prime Minister turned to President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair to join, and they agreed. I was then asked to become the Academic Adviser of the new body and, as they say, the rest is history. Soon afterwards, Mr. Persson then suggested that a large inter-governmental conference should be organized that would address these concerns internationally, and I became the person responsible for the academic side, and a member of the organizing committee, consisting of important Swedish government officials, driven forward largely by Veronika Bard- Bringeus. We opened the Stockholm Forum on Holocaust Education on January 27, 2000, with a large number of governments in attendance. Out of that came the famous Stockholm Declaration, which until today forms the basis for the ITF. A great deal has changed since then. -
Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont Mckenna College
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2012 Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Schiller, Max, "Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich" (2012). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 358. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/358 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Introduction The formation and subsequent actions of the Nazi government left a devastating and indelible impact on Europe and the world. In the midst of general technological and social progress that has occurred in Europe since the Enlightenment, the Nazis represent one of the greatest social regressions that has occurred in the modern world. Despite the development of a generally more humanitarian and socially progressive conditions in the western world over the past several hundred years, the Nazis instigated one of the most diabolic and genocidal programs known to man. And they did so using modern technologies in an expression of what historian Jeffrey Herf calls “reactionary modernism.” The idea, according to Herf is that, “Before and after the Nazi seizure of power, an important current within conservative and subsequently Nazi ideology was a reconciliation between the antimodernist, romantic, and irrantionalist ideas present in German nationalism and the most obvious manifestation of means ...modern technology.” 1 Nazi crimes were so extreme and barbaric precisely because they incorporated modern technologies into a process that violated modern ethical standards. Nazi crimes in the context of contemporary notions of ethics are almost inconceivable. -
20070215-Bauer.Pdf
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES On the Holocaust and Other Genocides Yehuda Bauer W A S H I N G T O N , D. C. On the Holocaust and Other Genocides Yehuda Bauer JOSEPH AND REBECCA MEYERHOFF ANNUAL LECTURE 5 October 2006 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, February 2007 Copyright © 2007 by Yehuda Bauer THE JOSEPH AND REBECCA MEYERHOFF ANNUAL LECTURE was endowed by the Meyerhoff family in 1994 to honor excellence in research and foster dissemination of cutting- edge scholarly work on the Holocaust and its legacy. Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff of Baltimore, Maryland, were active philanthropists in the United States and abroad, focusing especially on Jewish learning and scholarship, as well as on music, the arts, and humanitarian causes. Their children, Eleanor Katz and Harvey M. Meyerhoff (Chairman Emeritus of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council), have endowed this lecture, which is organized by the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. There can hardly be a doubt that one of the most problematic documents in international relations is the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, which was ratified by most countries of the world. As we all know, it was originally the brainchild of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who managed to flee from Europe in the early stages of World War II, and who coined the term genocide. -
Gadol Beyisrael Hagaon Hakadosh Harav Chaim Michoel Dov
Eved Hashem – Gadol BeYisrael HaGaon HaKadosh HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L (4. Cheshvan 5664/ 25. Oktober 1903, Debrecen, Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia – 6 Kislev 5718/ 29. November 1957, Mount Kisco, New York) Евед ХаШем – Гадоль БеИсраэль ХаГаон ХаКадош ХаРав Хаим-Михаэль-Дов Вайсмандель; Klenot medzi Klal Yisroel, Veľký Muž, Bojovník, Veľký Tzaddik, vynikajúci Talmid Chacham. Takýto človek príde na svet iba raz za pár storočí. „Je to Hrdina všetkých Židovských generácií – ale aj pre každého, kto potrebuje príklad odvážneho človeka, aby sa pozrel, kedy je potrebná pomoc pre tých, ktorí sú prenasledovaní a ohrození zničením v dnešnom svete.“ HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L, je najväčší Hrdina obdobia Holokaustu. Jeho nadľudské úsilie o záchranu tisícov ľudí od smrti, ale tiež pokúsiť sa zastaviť Holokaust v priebehu vojny predstavuje jeden z najpozoruhodnejších príkladov Židovskej histórie úplného odhodlania a obete za účelom záchrany Židov. Nesnažil sa zachrániť iba niektorých Židov, ale všetkých. Ctil a bojoval za každý Židovský život a smútil za každou dušou, ktorú nemohol zachrániť. Nadľudské úsilie Rebeho Michoela Ber Weissmandla oddialilo deportácie viac ako 30 000 Židov na Slovensku o dva roky. Zohral vedúcu úlohu pri záchrane tisícov životov v Maďarsku, keď neúnavne pracoval na zverejňovaní „Osvienčimských protokolov“ o nacistických krutostiach a genocíde, aby „prebudil“ medzinárodné spoločenstvo. V konečnom dôsledku to ukončilo deportácie v Maďarsku a ušetrilo desiatky tisíc životov maďarských Židov. Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandel bol absolútne nebojácny. Avšak, jeho nebojácnosť sa nenarodila z odvahy, ale zo strachu ... neba. Každý deň, až do svojej smrti ho ťažil smútok pre milióny, ktorí nemohli byť spasení. 1 „Prosím, seriózne študujte Tóru,“ povedal HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandel ZTVK "L svojim študentom, "spomína Rav Spitzer. -
5 Vergangenheitsbewältigung: Historikerstreit and the Notion Of
Vergangenheitsbewältigung: Historikerstreit and the Notion of Continued Responsibility Paul Rutschmann The chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, an- nounced in April of 2006 during a parliamentary session that she and her fellow party members represent a younger generation which no longer has direct ties to the Third Reich. Her statement revealed a certain confidence that the National Socialist past can finally belong to the past without further continuation into the present, as well as the hope that Germans would finally be able to devote their full attention, unencumbered by the shadow of Hitler, to the future. This renewed desire to put the burdened past behind appears twenty years after the highly publicized Historians’ Dispute (Historikerstreit) in which a more vigorous attempt had been made to free German national consciousness from the lingering influences of a negative-laden Nazi past. Despite her optimism, one still has to ask whether enough time has elapsed to absolve later generations of Germans of continued responsibility for the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The Historikerstreit of 1986/7 revolved mainly around the uniqueness or non-uniqueness of Nazi history in public memory and the historian’s role in rees- tablishing a healthy sense of national identity. While adding nothing new in the way of historical research, the dispute did reveal what is at stake for Germans in their interpretations of the past. Ostensibly, the dispute was conducted in the man- ner of political Vergangenheitsbewältigung. But by politicizing the memory of Nazi war crimes, many of the conservative historians were clouding the deeper issues inherent in the notion of Vergangenheitsbewältigung.1 Vergangenheitsbewältigung as such expresses the manner in which Germans come to grips with or interpret their past and to what degree their interpretations of history reflect feelings of continued responsibility towards the survivors of the former victims. -
'The Historikerstreit Is Much More Than an Academic Exercise. It Is Part of A
‘The Historikerstreit is much more than an academic exercise. It is part of a larger controversy about the political uses of history and the relationship between historical consciousness and identity.’ (Nolan, 1998, p. 53) Discuss this claim with particular reference to the arguments of Habermas, Hillgruber, Nolte and Stürmer. The Historikerstreit was a debate about the singularity of the Holocaust and the impact of remembrance of Germany's Nazi past on national identity in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the present. The debate was initiated in July 1986 with the publication of Habermas's article Eine Art Schadensabwicklung, in which he isolated and criticized supposed 'apologetic tendencies' in Andreas Hillgruber's book Zweierlei Untergang: Die Zerschlagung des Deutschen Reiches und das Ende des europäischen Judentums , and Ernst Nolte's and Michael Stürmer's publications in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), as well as in confrontations with the Nazi past in the FRG more widely. Numerous articles were published in the FAZ and Die Zeit newspapers as the debate escalated throughout 1986 and into 1987. The public nature of the debate meant that it was in many ways a continuation of a trend of increased confrontation with the Nazi past, which had started in the 1960s with the student movements and had continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s when the 1979 television screening of Holocaust and the 1985 French documentary film Shoah had brought memories of the Holocaust more decidedly into the public sphere (Travers, 1991, p. 247). However, the arguments of Hillgruber, Nolte and St ürmer formed part of a conservative reaction against this supposedly left-wing concentration on the Nazi past.