Abstract
Within the flood of publications on Holocaust history that has been rising since the 1990s, studies on the perpetrators received and continue to receive special attention. Seen from a wider perspective, this interest is not new: the executors of the so-called ‘Final Solution’ have been the subject of criminal investigations, scholarly discourse and public debate for decades. Even when the agents of genocide — as a result of deliberate oversight as in the case of postwar Germany or due to placing the emphasis on the victims — were not explicitly mentioned, the consequences of their deeds remained all too visible to ignore them. Yet historians, that is to say those who define it as their job to find out ‘what really happened’, over an extended period of time left it to others to deal with the issue of perpetration. This chapter is neither a comprehensive overview of historians’ dealings with the Holocaust at large nor an account of the perpetrators’ acts.1 Rather, it highlights key questions of perpetrator-oriented historical research and its context up to the present. How did the perception of Nazi crimes and their agents change over time, what caused the renewed interest in the murderers of European Jewry especially in Germany, and what are the potentials and pitfalls of recent research trends for our understanding of Holocaust history?
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Notes
For an excellent overview of Holocaust historiography, see D. Pohl, ‘Die HolocaustForschung und Goldhagens Thesen’, Vierteljahrshefte fiir Zeitgeschichte, 45 (1997), 1–48; for different forms of perpetration in historiographical perspective, see C.R. Browning, ‘German Killers: Orders from Above, Initiative from Below, and the Scope of Local Autonomy — The Case of Brest-Litovsk’, in Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 116–42; idem, ‘German Killers: Behaviour and Motivation in the Light of New Evidence’, ibid., pp. 143–69; G. Paul, ed., Die Tater der Shoah. Fanatische Nationalsozialisten oder ganz normale Deutsche? (Gottingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2002); W. Kaiser, ed., Tater im Vemichtungskrieg. Der Uberfall auf die Sowjetunion und der Volkermord an den Juden (Berlin: Propylaen, 2002); T. Sandkiihler, ‘Die Tater des Holocaust. Neuere Uberlegungen und Kontroversen’, in Wehnnacht und Vernichtungspolitik. Militar im nationalsozialistischen System, ed. K.H. Pohl (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), pp. 39–65. The opinions presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
See T. Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992), pp. 35–42 (quotation, p. 36). On the wider context, see D. Bloxham, Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
For the history of German trials, see A. Ruckerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht. Versuch einer Vergangenheitsbewaltigung (Heidelberg: C.F. Muller, 1982).
G. Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a Nation (New York: Viking Press, 1957). Characteristically, Reitlinger’s book was published in German in 1957 with the subtitle Tragodie einer deutschen Epoche.
F. Meinecke, Die Deutsche Katastrophe. Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden: Brockhaus, 1946), p. 140 (my translation). On Meinecke and West German historiography in general, see N. Berg, Der Holocaust und die westdeutschen Historiker. Erforschung und Erinnemng (GOttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2003).
E. Kogon, ‘Das Dritte Reich und die preuf3isch-deutsche Geschichte’, Frankfurter Hefte. Zeitschrift far Politik und Kultur, 1, 3 (1946), 44; see also idem, ‘Das deutsche Volk und der Nationalsozialismus’, ibid., 1, 2 (1946), 62–70; idem, Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Frankfurter Hefte, 1946).
See N. Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfange der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1996); K.-M. Mallmann and G. Paul, ‘Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent? Gestapo, Society and Resistance’, in Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945, ed. D.F. Crew (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 166–96.
F. Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942); K. Heiden, Der Fuehrer: Hitler’s Rise to Power (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), p. 774.
T. Abel, Why Hitler Came to Power: An Answer Based on the Original Life Stories of Six Hundred of his Followers (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1938), p. 156. See also idem, The Nazi Movement (New York: Atherton, 1965) and, based on Abel’s collection of autobiographical statements, P.H. Merkl, Political Violence under the Swastika: 581 Early Nazis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). For an overview of sociological trends in dealing with the Holocaust, see W. Bergmann, ‘Starker Auftritt, schwacher Abgang. Antisemitismusforschung in den Sozialwissenschaften’, in Antisemitismusforschung in den Wissenschaften, ed. W. Bergmann and M. Körte (Gottingen: Wallstein Verlag, forthcoming).
G. Reitlinger, The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945 (London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1953) (published in Germany in 1956 as Die Endlosung — Hitlers Versuch der Ausrottung der Juden Europas 1939–1945). The revised second English edition (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1968) contains few changes over the original text, which was republished, with an introduction by Michael Berenbaum, in 1987 (Northvale, NY: Jason Aronson).
J. Tenenbaum, Race and Reich. The Story of an Epoch (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1956), pp. 364f.
See e.g. N. Levin, The Holocaust. The Destruction ofEuropean Jewry 1933–1945 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968); L.S. Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews 1933–1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975). For a highly critical assessment of these still popular accounts, see R. Hilberg, The Politics of Memory. The Journey of a Holocaust Historian (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), pp. 142–7.
H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd edition (Cleveland, NY: Meridian, 1958), p. ix(preface to the first edition, 1950).
Ibid., pp. 465, 472.
R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, student edition (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), pp. 263–93.
R. Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933–1945 (New York: Aaron Asher Books, 1992), p. ix.
H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1963); German edition: Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ein Bericht von der Banalitat des Bosen (Munich: Piper, 1964).
Ibid., pp. 263, 276, 287f.
See H. Jager, Verbrechen unter totalitarer Herrschaft. Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Gewaltkriminalitdt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1967), with a stimulating typology of perpetrators; also Riickerl, NS-Verbrechen.
Lines of continuity in German pre- and post-war historiography have been investigated only recently; see G. Aly, ‘Ruckwartsgewandte Propheten. Willige Historiker — Bemerkungen in eigener Sache’, in Macht — Geist — Wahn. Kontinuitaten deutschen Denkens (Berlin: Argon, 1997).
L. Douglas, The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 142.
P. Weiss, The Investigation (New York: Athenaeum, 1966); see also S. Gilman and J. Zipes, eds., Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096–1996 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 722–35.
J. Amery, Jenseits von Schuld und Suhne, Bewaltigungsversuche eines Uberwaltigten, 2nd edition (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1977), p. 17, my translation (Foreword to the first edition, Munich: Szczesny, 1966); English version: At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplationsby a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities, trans. S. Rosenfeld and S.P. Rosenfeld (New York: Schocken Books, 1986).
P. Levi, ‘The Drowned and the Saved’, cited in L.L. Langer, Preempting the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 40, who also comments on the publication of If this is a Man in America under the title Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (ibid., p. 23).
Compare K.D. Bracher, The Gennan Dictatorship (New York: Praeger, 1979); M. Broszat, National Socialism, 1918–1933 (Santa Barbara, CA: Clio Press, 1967); H. Mommsen, ‘The Realization of the Unthinkable: The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in the Third Reich’, in The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany, ed. G. Hirschfeld (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), pp. 73–92. For a good summary of the debate see C.R. Browning, ‘Beyond “Intentionalism” and “Functionalism”: The Decision for the Final Solution Reconsidered’, in The Path to Genocide. Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 88–101. H. Mommsen, Auschwitz, 17 Juli 1942. Der Weg zur europaischen ‘Endlosung der Judenfrage’ (Munich: dtv, 2002), presents a state-of-the-art synthesis of Holocaust research from a functionalist perspective.
Among the most influential monographs of this time period are H. Krausnick and H.-H. Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1981); O. Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986); C. Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Bonn: Dietz, 1978).
For the police apparatus, see R. Gellately, The Gestapo and Modern Society. Enforcing Racial l’olicy 1933–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); U. Herbert, Best. Biographische Studien uber Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vemunft 1903–1989 (Bonn: Dietz, 1996); R. Ogorreck, Die Einsatzgruppen und die ‘Genesis der Endlosung’ (Berlin: Metropol, 1996). Outstanding among the growing number of regional case studies published in Germany are C. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschaftsund Vernichtungspolitik in Weif3ru/3land 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1999); and D. Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944. Organisation und Durchfuhmng eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1997); for an overview see U. Herbert, ed., Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939–1945. Neue Forschungen und Kontroversen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1998); English version: National Socialist Extermination Policies: Contemporary German Perspectives and Controversies (Oxford: Berghahn, 2000).
C.R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
Langer, Preempting, p. xiii. Similarly, Arendt pointed to ‘the abyss between the actuality of what [Eichmann] did and the potentiality of what others might have done’ (Arendt, Eichmann, p. 278).
D.J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996). For a critical review, see R.B. Birn, ‘Revising the Holocaust’, The Historical Journal, 40 (1997), 195–215.
See G. Eley, ed., The ‘Goldhagen Effect’: History, Memory, Nazism — Facing the German Past (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).
G. Aly, ‘Endlosung’. Volkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europaischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1995), pp. 45, 59, 71, 112, 130, 374f. English version: ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (London: Arnold, 1999).
Herbert, Best, pp. 203–8; similarly, M. Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Fuhrungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002). Both Herbert and Wildt focus on the generational experience of a comparatively young, highly educated age cohort (see Wildt, Generation, pp. 23–6).
From among the growing number of studies on individual perpetrators and groups, see Browning, Nazi Policy; Paul, Tater, Kaiser, Tater; E.B. Westermann, “‘Ordinary Men” or “Ideological Soldiers”? Police Battalion 310 in Russia, 1942’, German Studies Review, 21 (1998), 41–68; G. Paul and K.-M. Mallmann, eds., Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg. ‘Heimatfront’ und besetztes Europa (Darmstadt: WBG, 2000).
See HIS, The German Army and Genocide: Crimes against War Prisoners, Jews and other Civilians in the East, 1939–1944 (New York: New Press, 1999); and the accompanying anthology by H. Heer and K. Naumann, eds., Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1995); English version: War of Exterrnination: The German Military in World War II, 1941–44 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2000); M. Mann, ‘Were the Perpetrators of Genocide “Ordinary Men” or “Real Nazis”? Results from Fifteen Hundred Biographies’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 14 (2000), 331–66.
See Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, ed., Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4: The Attack on the Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), especially the chapters by J. Forster; M. Messerschmidt, ‘The Soldier in the War to Conquer Eastern Europe’, Massachusetts Review, 36 (1995), 414–19. With special focus on German occupation policy in the Soviet Union: G. Reitlinger, The House Built on Sand: The Conflicts of German Policy in Russia, 1939–1945 (London: Viking Press, 1960); T.P. Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire: German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1942–43 (New York: Praeger, 1988); T.J. Schulte, The German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia (Oxford: Berg, 1989).
The new exhibition catalogue — Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–44 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002) — combines in its 750 pages a vast collection of documents (reprinted in facsimile form) with further reading. For a highly critical assessment of the new Wehrmacht exhibition by one of the creators of its precursor see H. Heer, ‘Vom Verschwinden der Tater. Die Auseinandersetzung um die Ausstellung “Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944”’, Zeitschrift fiirGeschichtswissenschaft, 50 (2002), 869–98.
In the literary field, G. Grass’s novella Im Krebsgang (Gottingen: Steidl, 2002) drew considerable public attention to the plight of Germans at the end of the war. J. Friedrich, Der Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 (Berlin: Propylaen, 2002), offers a decontextualized and in many respects problematic account of Allied bombing of German cities.
See H. Welzer, S. Moller and K. Tschugall, ‘Opa war kein Nazi’. Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedachtnis (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2002).
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Matthäus, J. (2004). Historiography and the Perpetrators of the Holocaust. In: Stone, D. (eds) The Historiography of the Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524507_10
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