German perpetrators committed the Holocaust - Essay Example

Why the German Perpetrators Committed the Holocaust: A Critical Review The Holocaust was absolutely one of the most horrific events of the 20th century, and the term 'Holocaust' is basically used to describe "the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the Nazi regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler" (Niewyk, 2000). In order to be able to even remotely understand the Holocaust properly, there is a multitude of issues that need to be thoroughly addressed and discussed. Many people over time have attempted to explain the reasons as to why German perpetrators followed orders to commit mass murder, and the aim of this paper is to discuss whether or not these reasons are illuminating, as well as the reasons why they are or are not. By doing this, we will not only be able to get the answers to this, but as well will be able to better understand the issue of the Holocaust overall. This is what will be dissertated in the following. There are many different occurrences which have taken place in the world which have left an incredible impact and have significantly influenced the future that lay ahead of it dramatically, and the Holocaust is, without a doubt, one of these described occurrences. There are so many questions that surround the Holocaust, namely that of how such ordinary people could have participated in such an unholy and unimaginable act of racism and hatred. Each person seems to have their own taking and view on this issue, and any account of the Holocaust itself truly has to take views such as this into consideration in order to be able to gain a proper understanding on the occurrence itself at all. In reality, although surely there are followers to each different explanation, at the same time there are obviously going to be those which are more believable and comprehendible than others, and it is important to determine which is which, thus proving the incredible need for a discussion of the matter of the different reasons that have been used in the past in order to explain about the matter of how so many people could act so insensitive and callous and commit torture and murder to innocent human beings. The Holocaust was an occurrence which was characterized by the efficient and systematic attempt to assemble and kill as many people as possible, and for example, "detailed lists of potential victims were made and maintained using Dehomag statistical machinery, and meticulous records of the killings were produced. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property to the Nazis, which was then precisely cataloged and tagged, and for which receipts were issued" (Wette, 2006). The Holocaust was incredibly geographically widespread, and it was systematically conducted in virtually all available areas of Nazi-occupied territory, with the mass killing at its worst being in Central and Eastern Europe, which had more than 7 million Jews in the year 1939. The Holocaust was an insanely and unimaginably horrific and evil occurrence, which was carried out with any reprieve even for children or babies, and during the actual selection process within the Holocaust, children were divided carefully into two separate groups: those who could work, and those who could not. Those who were deemed as being healthy enough to work were kept alive only because they would be useful, and were given a uniform and a prisoner ID which was tattooed onto them. The children who were not considered as being fit for work were taken immediately to the gas chambers, tortured and killed. There were also many medical experiments which were carried out during the Holocaust, and most of these medical experiments included a great deal of torture; this included the placing of subjects in pressure chambers, testing various drugs on them to see the results and side effects, freezing them to death, and as well various other usually fatal traumas. Those involved with the Holocaust seemed to have absolutely no care or regard for human life, and this was not only of the Jews, as while the victims of the Holocaust were primarily Jews, the Nazis also went through and persecuted and slaughtered members of other groups that they considered as being inferior to them, such as Poles and other Slavic peoples such as Russians, Belarusians, and Serbs. The exact number of people that were killed during the Holocaust is actually unknown since it is so incredibly large, but scholars, using a variety of different methods, have generally agreed upon the common range of the number of victims, this being: an estimated 5 to 6 million Jews, 1.8 - 1.9 million Christian Poles and other (non-Jewish) Poles, 200,000 - 800,000 Roma & Sinti, 200,000 - 300,000 people with disabilities, 80,000 - 200,000 European Freemasons, 100,000 communists, 10,000 - 25,000 homosexual men, and 2,500 - 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. The matter of who was actually involved in the Holocaust is of such great significance to the topic of the Holocaust overall, as one of the main questions that anyone reading about the Holocaust would wonder is why those who were involved followed orders to commit mass murder. Basically there were many different groups of people who were involved here; "A wide range of German soldiers, officials, and civilians were in some way involved with the Holocaust, from clerks and officials in the government to units of the army, the police, and the SS. Many ministries, including those of armaments, interior, justice, railroads, and foreign affairs, had substantial roles in orchestrating the Holocaust; similarly, German physicians participated in medical experiments and the T-4 euthanasia program. And, though there was no single military unit in charge of the Holocaust, the SS under Himmler was the closest" (Miller, 1986). There have been many different forms of explanations which have been made in attempts to explain the reasons for the Holocaust and the reason that the perpetrators involved followed orders to commit mass murder, and one of the most commonly used explanation is that is was because of obedience factors; basically, there were a number of post-war psychologists who tried to address the reasons as to why people went ahead and obeyed immoral orders in the Holocaust, and the findings of these psychologists demonstrated that "reasonable people, when instructed by a person in a position of authority, obeyed commands entailing what they believed to be the death or suffering of others. These results were confirmed in other experiments as well, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment" (Wette, 2006). Basically then, this goes to say that although most of the persons involved knew and realized that it was wrong and immoral to do what they were doing, they still went through with it because they were following orders from the authoritative figures that were present at that time, one of the most primary of course being Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a man who was known as being strange in many ways, particularly in the fact of how he was never heard to condemn war, which was very unlike the rest of his colleagues who were all - for the most part anyway - completely against it. Hitler gained power in Germany after World War I, and, using such elements as propaganda and charismatic oratory, he resulted in appealing to the needs of the general population, and Hitler was one of the most major authoritative figures who were involved with the occurrence of the Holocaust. Another common explanation as to why the perpetrators involved with the Holocaust obeyed orders to commit mass murder is in regards to the matter of psychology, in particular psychological mechanisms. Psychological mechanisms are aspects of a human or other animal's psychology that serves for a specific purpose, and basically what this explanation then meant was that those who were involved with the Holocaust were basically brainwashed in a sense, into believing that what they were doing was in fact positive, and that there were actually reasonable purposes behind what they were doing. This particular explanation behind the participation of those involved in the Holocaust is incredibly important and significant, and after all, the Holocaust is a clear example of two factors in particular at work. "One is described by the 'boiling frog' theory, which says that an enormous change will not be noticed if it occurs in gradual steps. The other factor is the primal and powerful mechanism of herding, which has its home in the limbic system and ensures that individuals conform to the group. This mechanism has evolved through natural selection to ensure that human groups survive. Together, these factors make conforming to the group a stronger impulse than breaking out, even if the individual does not agree with what the group is doing" (Wikipedia, 2007). Therefore, it is quite easy to see why this explanation in particular is one of the most reasonable and believable, as there is really no way that so many people felt that the incredibly immoral and horrifically sinful acts of the Holocaust were actually purposeful, unless of course they were psychologically triggered into believing this was so. Another explanation, and one of the most obvious, speaks of the religious hatred and racism that was present in the world at that time. Although issues such as these still remain even in the world today, it was much more out of control at the time of the Holocaust, and as well there were not nearly as many laws and regulations which protected people's rights, particularly against such matters as religious and race hatred. The German Nazis actually believed that it was their job, or their duty, to overcome natural compassion and execute torture and murder for what they believed to be higher ideals. One of the most notable psychologists who have performed research in regards to this particular explanation is Stanley Milgram, who was one of many psychologists who was incredibly questioning as to how to explain how ordinary people could have participated in such heinous and immoral crimes. Milgram completed many famous experimental studies of obedience to authority in order to attempt to figure this out and come up with some reasonable and statistical explanations, and it was in the year 1963 when he actually submitted the results of his experiments in the article Behavioral Study of Obedience, which specially discussed elements of the Holocaust. It is very important to realize that although there was certainly much psychological deference and manipulation involved with the Holocaust, in order for so many ordinary people to go ahead and commit such heinous acts, there was also without a doubt - as with many other religious conflicts in the past - that some people involved were also poisoned with racial and religious ideology of hatred. Many well known persons have made verbal contributions and opinions in regards to this particular explanation, such as Martin Luther King, for example, who "made a specific written call for harsh persecution of the Jewish people, including that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscatedas wellLuther argued that Jews should be shown no mercy or kindness, should have no legal protection, and that these 'poisonous envenomed worms' should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time" (Browning, 1993). There is yet another issue that is considered as being in regards to a major explanation as to why people followed orders to commit mass murder in the Holocaust, and this particular one is also considered as being a major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies in general. This issue is the question of functionalism versus intentionalism, and the views of the functionalists when compared to the intentionalists are incredibly different; functionalists tend to see the Holocaust as having come and really derived from below in the ranks of German bureaucracy with little to no involvement on the part of Hitler, whereas the intentionalists still hold to the belief that the Holocaust was nothing less than a long-term and well thought out master plan of Hitler, and that he was without a doubt the driving force behind the Holocaust itself. There are many different well-known persons involved in this argument, both functionalists and intentionalists, with some of the most notorious functionalists including Hans Mommsen, Martin Broszat, Raul Hilberg, and Christopher Browning; and some of the most notorious intentionalists being Lucy Dawidowicz, Andreas Hillgruber, Karl Dietrich Bracher, and Gerhard Weinberg. Dawidowicz was one of the most major contributors for the argument on the side of the intentionalists, and she, along with the other intentionalists, argued that the Holocaust was planned by Hitler right from the very beginning of his political career, and as well has suggested that Hitler had decided on the Holocaust as early as sometime in the beginning years of the 1920s. There are many other - more minor, for the most part - explanations that have been used in this regards, and although each certainly has its own differences from the others, there is one factor which remains in almost every one of them and that is the subject of psychology. Psychology is seemed to have a place in each explanation, and it seems to make sense, as this is really the only way that can truly explain the ability of so many people - ordinary people at that - to be able to commit the acts that they did during the Holocaust. From this review we are able to conclude many different points, several of particular importance, such as the fact of how there are many different explanations which are used to put some sort of reasoning behind the fact of why and how the perpetrators involved with the Holocaust were able to commit such heinous torture and murder during the Holocaust. Each explanation has its own followers and believers as well as its own points and factors which are involved, and yet each tends to hold at least a bit of relevance and believability. After all, there had to be more than a single factor involved in order for so many seemingly ordinary people to be able to actually believe that they were doing something positive through the Holocaust or simply for them to be able to commit the acts at all. Surely each different person who was involved with the Holocaust had their own particular reasons, whether their specific case falls on one of the considered explanations or more than one, it is most likely different in each case. All of the explanations however are illuminating in their own way, as each makes sense at least on a minimal level, and at least we are able to come to even a remote sense of understanding in regards to how people in the world could have committed such acts as they did. Certainly the most illuminating is the explanation which deals with psychology, as through research and studies we have seen that the authoritative figures who were involved with the Holocaust were obviously and absolutely taking full advantage of their power, and the leaders during this time were incredibly charismatic in regards to their political actions, which is without a doubt one of the most major reasons as to why so many people were able to commit so many heinous and horrific acts. This review and others like it as well are incredibly significant not only in regards to the Holocaust itself but in fact to the world in general, as understanding about an issue as intense and universal as the Holocaust and about how people could be involved in such a heinous occurrence can truly also shed light on other - perhaps smaller for the most part but still important and significant nonetheless - matters. Works Cited Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993. Kellenbach, Katharina von. 'Vanishing Acts: Perpetrators in Postwar Germany', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 17 (2), 305-329, 2003. Lozowick, Yaakov. Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. ISBN: 0-06-131983-X, 1974. Miller, Arthur. The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1986. Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Rebekah McFarland-Icke, Bronwyn. Nurses in Nazi Germany. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999. Shepherd, Ben. War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans. London: Harvard University Press, 2004. Waller, James. Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Westermann, Edward. Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Wette, Wolfram. The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. London: Harvard University Press, 2006. Wikipedia. Holocaust, online article retrieved March 24, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust Read More