Evaluating Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’
Intentionalist vs. Functionalist — Debates of World War II
World War II and the war-torn world that it left behind have become subject to historical debates since its original conclusion. The question that has plagued historians most around this subject involves the process and chain of events that went towards implementing the Nazi’s ‘Final Solution’ that led to the systematic murder of over 6 million Jews and 5 million other groups marginalized during the Nazi regime. Was the ‘Final Solution’ to ‘The Jewish Question’ something Hitler and the Nazis planned from the beginning? Or were the genocides and death camps the Nazi’s employed an outgrowth of the war and an example of the Nazi regime trying to fulfill promises that they had made during their rise? Was Hitler the one who gave the green light? Or was it one of his underlings that did it or pushed Hitler to making the decision? These are the questions that continue to cause confusion and disagreement between historians. Around the beginning of the 1970’s, two sides began to form concerning Hitler and the ‘Final Solution’, These being the ‘Intentionalist’ historians and the ‘Functionalist’ historians. From the resolution of World War II, the Intentionalist position was received as the general consensus, this being that Hitler had a plan for systematically murdering millions of Jews and other unwanted groups from Europe since he first entered politics, and World War II was a necessary step in accomplishing this plan of extermination. Beginning around the late 1960’s the Functionalist position began to emerge as doubt was cast on how active Hitler really was in his role as leader. A common factor in deciding which side of the debate historians will rest on, is the interpretation of Hitler and the Nazi’s early anti-Semitism and the words they use when purporting a need to get rid of all Jews in Europe. While two sides of this debate do exist, as more historical knowledge is gathered and researched and more data becomes known, the Functionalist argument becomes more compelling, but it does not discredit the Intentionalist historian’s main contention. Therefore, a synthesis of the two sides offers a proper outlook on how events can be viewed. Historians such as Sir Ian Kershaw and Yehuda Bauer attempt to do this when they purport that Hitler played a decisive and key role in the initiation of the Holocaust, but that the actual annihilation of Jews and marginalized groups in Europe was not the original solution, but an out-growth of an opportunity presented with the recent gains of the German army in Eastern Europe and a need for a solution to the ‘Jewish Question’ they had created for themselves.
The personhood Adolf Hitler adds to the debate surrounding the Final Solution due to the way he conducted himself once he assumed control. There is no written ‘directive’ that Hitler or Himmler issued that is known that ‘initiated’ the Nazi’s Final Solution, only evidence of a verbal directive. Historian, Ian Kershaw, in his book Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution, described Hitler as a “non-interventionist dictator” when concerning government administration. Kershaw also notes that Hitler would only sporadically delegate directives and they usually were done verbally.[1] Hitler’s words in his autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) can sometimes draw different conclusions based off different historian perspectives.
“If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German soldiers in the field, the sacrifice of millions would not have been in vain.”[2]
This quote seems to have an almost reflective quality in the genocide that would follow from the Final Solution. This reads as a foreshadow to later systematic murder. The Intentionalist historian might point to this quote, as well as many others about ‘getting rid of the Jews’ that Mein Kampf contains, and see this as Hitler having a vision for systematically killing all Jews in Europe. Kershaw describes Mein Kampf as an “amalgam” containing “history as racial struggle and the annihilation of Judaism and its most dangerous political and ideological manifestation, Marxism.”[3] A Functionalist historian may most likely counter, stating the actual systematic process that took place was a result of other options failing and it being a final resort. In his work, Kershaw is adamant about the necessity of Hitler as the Nazi’s leader as a factor for the course of events that would eventually take place. Kershaw’s reaction to the above quote from Hitler’s work describes it as appalling but not specifically indicative of Hitler already having his solution in mind, but that the “implicit genocidal link between war and the killing of Jews was there.”[4] Kershaw describes the ‘myth of the Führer’ as the “central integrating mechanism of the [Nazi]movement” as they rose political ranks.[5] And later, Kershaw describes the movement as attached “increasingly to the visionary goals embodied in the person of the charismatic leader.”[6] Giving credence to a centrally Intentionalist position of Hitler as a necessary component towards World War II and the Final Solution coming to fruition, although many on both sides most likely agree on Hitler’s presence as necessary and important.
When reading Hitler’s early words, historians will often draw different conclusions on Hitler’s actual ‘intent’. Some will see ‘getting rid of the European Jews’ as intending to kill them, while others could see it as “Put them somewhere else”, Intentionalists will most likely read it as ‘kill’ and Functionalists most likely will read “move elsewhere’. There is evidence that can reflect both assertions. Jewish-American Historian, Lucy Dawidowicz, takes on the position that völkische anti-Semitism was already widely mainstream and popular since the unification of Germany in 1871. German Historian, Uwe Puschner, described the völkisch movement in Germany as a paradigm presented to the population about balancing religious convictions with nationalistic ones. One of these causes involved keeping the purity of German blood from outside influence, Jews being recognized in their eyes as one of these influences.[7]
Ian Kershaw describes Dawidowicz’s general Intentionalist position as Hitler having formed his master plan for European Jewish annihilation by the time World War One had come to its end and it “openly espoused his program of annihilation” when he wrote Mein Kampf in 1924.[8] An example of what Dawidowicz most likely is referring to is the quote from Hitler’s autobiography mentioned above. Historian, Yehuda Bauer, dismissed this quote from Hitler as, while anti-Semitic at its base, it hardly reflects a blueprint for mass systematic genocide. This is considering that Mein Kampf totals almost 700 pages, so pulling one sentence can be difficult to defend with over-arching claims as Bauer argues Dawidowicz is attempting.[9] Dawidowicz presents an important perspective to the disagreements surrounding the Nazi’s Final Solution. Understanding Germany’s Kultur that was established in its unification under Otto von Bismarck is crucial to understanding the movement the Nazi’s were able to cultivate and build. Kultur functioned for the Germans as a nationalist calling to form a cohesive national body to overcome adversity that could present itself. This was a tendency towards nationalism and anti-Semitism that was in-grained early into Germany society in its conception. If Dawidowicz’s description is accurate, it would give light to the idea of Hitler following a similar suit as the rest of his German and Bavarian populous in gravitating towards their views in response to the ‘disgrace’ that was Weimar democracy and the Treaty of Versailles, and the Jewish population representing all the ills of Germany.
This quote from Mein Kampf is another that draws differing conclusions from historians:
“The Jew’s domination in the state seems so assured that now not only can he call himself a Jew again, but he ruthlessly admits his ultimate national and political designs. A section of his race openly owns itself to be a foreign people, yet even here they lie. For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.”[10]
This quote is Hitler outlining his deep-seeded anti-Semitic ideology and his personal view of European Jews in Mein Kampf. Hitler and the Nazi’s early words and propaganda paint a picture of this ideology and it leads credence towards the Intentionalist historian’s contentions, But there is an important factor to remember when examining these early speeches from the beginning of the 1920’s and into 1928. While researching speeches Hitler gave during this time and reviewing Hitler’s autobiography that came out during this period, Kershaw notes how marginalized and far from political power the NSDAP was during this time. [11] So, if plans to murder all European Jews did exist at this point, they would only be considered pipedreams or very rudimentary possible outlines for ‘if’ they managed to assume power.
Hitler states that Jews have no actual intention of creating a state to reside in. This could be alluding to the necessity for Jews to be in one controlled, centralized location. There is evidence that the Nazis had drawn up other possible ideas concerning ‘The Jewish Question’ before they settle on their official Final Solution that helped address this. One of these was the Madagascar Plan. This was a proposal signed by Franz Rademacher, the Judenreferat (Department for Jews) of Ribbentrop’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, and aimed to establish a Jewish settlement in Madagascar, the proposal was dated July 3rd, 1940. The document stated: “Section D III proposes as a solution of the Jewish question: In the Peace Treaty France must make the island of Madagascar available for the solution of the Jewish question.” (France currently had colonies on the African Island). The proposal goes on to make the case why it is important that Germany maintains control of European Jews in their new remote location:
“This arrangement would prevent the possible establishment in Palestine by the Jews of a Vatican State of their own, and the opportunity for them to exploit for their own purposes the symbolic importance which Jerusalem has for the Christian and Mohammedan parts of the world. Moreover, the Jews will remain in German hands as a pledge for the future good behavior of the members of their race in America.”[12]
This part of the proposal follows suit with Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf about what will happen if Jews manages to establish a state in Palestine. In Hitler’s words, the only reason Jews would establish a Palestinian settlement would be for it to be the ‘headquarters’ while they continued to deceive and manipulate the world. However, it is known that the Nazis coordinated with a Jewish company, Haavara, that was located in Tel Aviv to resettle German Jews into a community in Palestine. This agreement was first reached with the German government in August 1933. This program involved a transfer of German exports and Palestinian and German currency in order to facilitate the resettlement of German Jews. Between 1933 and 1939, approximately 60,000 German Jews were successfully resettled in Palestine even with Nazi attempts to curtain activities. Another similar agreement would later be reached with the Czech government shortly before World War II that allowed the immigration of several thousand Jews out of Germany.[13]
If Hitler had contentions to make Europe Judenrein (Clean of Jews), why would the Nazi regime go to lengths to move some of the Jewish populations out of Germany and Europe? If Judenrein meant total annihilation, it would make sense that most populations of European Jews should be consolidated and kept track of, not planned for resettlement under German watch. Germany did try to invade these efforts, recapturing some fleeing Jews during their military conquests. Yehuda Bauer discusses these plans for resettlement in his book, Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?. Bauer argues that in Nazi ideology and at the time in Germany, Jews were not recognized as people, but as ‘almost’ human and not citizens, like how one might view a slave. By this view, Bauer contends that “If Jews were not really human, one could sell them rather than exorcise them”.[14] Instead of having to pay to kill them, Germany could instead profit off them. Bauer refers to the plans of resettlement by the Nazis to a term coined by German SS officer, Reinhard Heydrich: “Territorial Final Solution”. Using European Jews as slave labor was also a possible consideration for the Nazi regime. Ian Kershaw notes a quote from the Nazi authority that answered an inquiry made by Hinrich Lohse, a Nazi politician, about using Jews in armaments industries: “Economic considerations should remain fundamentally out of consideration in dealing with the problem.”[15] Kershaw makes note of this because it shows the shifting policy answer to ‘Jewish Question’ that was now moving away from economic considerations and into more sinister methods.
Yehuda Bauer describes in his book the Hossbach protocol Hitler issued in November 1937. In this 4-year-plan Hitler outlines the necessity to prepare for war and to address the ‘Jewish problem’, which he defined as “The problem of world politics”.[16] Historians like Yehuda Bauer contend that the war and a Judenrein Europe were ideas that went hand in hand in Hitler’s ideology, other historians like Ian Kershaw would generally agree. Bauer defines this necessity for war as a “Nazi desire to assert the world dominance of the Germanic People in their struggle against world Jewry, and its minions”.[17] Bauer highlights the importance that Nazi anti-Semitism had in Germany aggression and the war that followed. Bauer reports that on January 30th, 1939, Hitler issued a declaration with which he “threatened the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe if International Jewry were to unleash another world war.”[18] Bauer goes on to describe how no formal plans for mass genocide of European Jews had existed at this stage.
At this point, German Jews had been marginalized and cut from society and pooled into concentrated ghettos. November 9th, 1938 was Kristallnacht, or ‘the Night of Broken Glass’, with which, after a speech by Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues, and schools were damaged, burned, and destroyed. Almost 100 German Jews were murdered through these violent uprisings in Germany instigated by Nazi officials and the Hitler Youth. On November 9th and 10th, over 30,000 German Jews were arrested and placed into prisons and concentration camps.[19] Beginning in September 1939 and coinciding with the Nazi’s invasion of Poland, European Jews began being consolidated and placed into urbanized ghettos, the first one being established in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, in October 1939. This step is seen as the first move towards the Final Solution that would later come to fruition, as Bauer points out. Bauer does not see it this way, instead he argues that this was not the first step to genocide, but the first step towards removal of Jews from Europe by concentrating them and starving them to later be expelled.[20] Bauer then contends that if it had not been for the later Final Solution that would be agreed on, many Jewish in Eastern Europe would have survived the war. Intentionalists such as Lucy Dawidowicz would argue that Operation Barbarossa, the later German invasion of the Soviet Union, was paired with the Nazi’s plan for the ‘Final Solution’ of European Jews in Europe. The invasion of the Soviet Union would stand as the catalyst to begin facilitating their planned genocide.[21]
Ambiguity surrounding the ‘official order’ to begin mass murder leads to different conclusions from historians. At the most extreme of the ideological positions among Functionalists can sometimes be described as following the ‘Bottom-up approach of the Holocaust’. This terminology was coined by German journalist and historian, Götz Aly in his book, ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews. In his book, Aly uses proposal from a lower ranking SS officer, Rolf-Heinz Höppner, signed July 16th, 1941. In it, he writes to Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking SS official who was tasked by Hitler with managing logistics of mass deportations of European Jews. Höppner writes:
“There is a danger that, in the coming winter, it will become impossible to feed all the Jews. It must seriously be considered whether the most humane solution is to finish off the Jews unfit for labour through some fast-acting means. This would definitely be more pleasant than letting them starve to death.”[22]
Aly uses this as an example to illustrate how high-ranking Nazi officials may not have been who came up with the idea of systematic genocide, but instead that the idea could have possibly been floated from lower ranking members of the party and eventually taken up due to necessity for an immediate answer. In Aly’s interpretation, the Nazi’s seemed to garner their support in the German population by expanding welfare states and redistributive measures that involved marketing and selling confiscated Jewish property, Aly argues that this was the focus on the public and the anti-Semitism went under the radar or was just overlooked entirely. Other Functionalists might contend that the ‘Final Solution’ could have came from the top and moved down the chain of command, but maybe the order did not start with Hitler, but instead one of his members of his inner circle had given the command like Reinhard Heydritch or Heinrich Himmler.
Lucy Dawidowicz argues that it could not be possible for the call to come from lower ranking officials based off the timeline and the existence of systematic killings already beginning to take place. The Einsatzgruppen was a special German police task force that followed the German army as it moved through Europe. When Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, this task force began earning a new nomenclature; “mobile killing squads”. Dawidowicz argues that these squads were mobile and killing Communists, political opponents, and Jews as early as May of 1941. The letter dated to Eichmann comes in July, almost 2 months after when killings had already supposedly begun on the Eastern front. Over the course of the war, the Einsatzgruppen, with some help from Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, would systematically kill over a half-million people, a majority of which being Jews.[23] Yehuda Bauer argues that since evidence shows the Einsatzgruppen had been training to kill Jews and Communists since May of 1941, it is argued by most historians that some sort of verbal command had been issued at some point in 1941, Bauer and many World War II historians place guesses in March.[24] Bauer then gives a brief overview of the perceived timeline for the chain of events in 1941 that led to the Nazi’s Final Solution. In summer of 1941, Rudolf Hoess, the Commander of Auschwitz reported he had received an order to begin preparing the camp for ‘mass annihilation of Jews’. September 3rd, 1941 is when the first tests of gassings were done on Soviet war prisoners. By December of 1941, Chelmno death camp is established in Poland, Ian Kershaw notes that the same day the camp began running its gas-vans, Hitler is quotes as saying the following about European Jews to an audience in the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s eastern military headquarters: “He who destroys life, exposes himself to death. And nothing other than this is happening to them.”[25] The Wannsee Conference that aimed to establish a ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’ that was desperate for an answer with the war waging and Nazi territory expanding deeper into Europe took place on January 30th, and in March of 1942, camps were implementing full-scale systematic genocide.[26]
Ian Kershaw, in his book, Hitler: 1936–45 Nemesis, he aimed to outline the chain of events that conflagrated into genocide and how Hitler played a decisive role in the Nazi’s genocidal Final Solution coming to fruition. Kershaw frames the argument in terms of how Nazis view Jewish presence in Germany and in Europe, this being important to understand the connection that it had with the impending war on Hitler’s mind that eventually led to the Hossbach Protocol and invasion of the Soviet Union. Kershaw notes that “Jews were to be treated as members of a warring power”.[27] Through his work, Kershaw is adamant that rhetoric should not be mistaken for a drawn-out plan. However, Hitler regarded himself as a prophet paving the way for the annihilation of European Jews to take shape. On January 30th, 1939, Hitler in his Reichstag speech “prophesied” that destructions would come upon European Jews because of the new world war.[28] Hitler was not present for the Wannsee conference that aimed to decide the fate of European Jews in Nazi control, Kershaw notes that his attendance was not necessary since he had clearly communicated his intentions for the Jews in Europe and that Heydritch took the blanket statement as a chance to massively expand their genocide in Europe.[29]
Yehuda Bauer provides an interesting take on the Wannsee conference. For Bauer, the decision regarding the ‘Jewish Question’ had already been made 10 months prior to the conference as systematic murder was already being committed in Eastern Germany at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen. What Bauer suggests the conference stood for was to gather consensus among the high-ranking members of Hitler’s inner circle about the ‘solution’ and to create a game plan for its full implementation. The idea was to kill European Jews from West to East, this never happening as the Nazi empire began crumbling in the beginning of 1943 before areas of Eastern Germany could be properly acquired. Bauer goes on to mention the Nazis once again started considering other possible options for ridding Europe of Jews, even revisiting the prospects of selling them in exchange for better peace deals once their power and influence began to fall away. The revisiting of these plans illustrates to Bauer that the conclusion to kill European Jews “was a logical outcome of Nazi ideology, but not the only one.”[30] Kershaw would most likely agree.
History is often complicated, and more information is often required to continue to serve assertions. The contention that rests between Intentionalist and Functionalists is based on something that in all truest terms, will never fully be made known. It can never be truly known when exactly the Final Solution presented itself to Hitler. The only way this could be found out would be the possible existence of written statements from Hitler dated before 1940 that explicitly outlines his plans for actual mass genocide against European Jews, but as far as it is known, these do not exist. It makes sense that in the original conclusion of World War II the world found Hitler as the face to blame all problems that came about. It should not be understated that Hitler was an essential figure to the ‘Final Solution’ coming to fruition in Europe, but this does not have to necessary equate to “it was all him and he was in on it from the beginning!” kinds of resolutions that are often seen at the end of episodes of Scooby Doo when the bad guy is caught. Therefore, perspectives like Kershaw and Bauer are important to the field of history and its future. Instead of focusing on one side or the other, these historians focus on making truth claims and defending them, regardless of which ‘side’ the conclusion rests on. These historians fall as moderates in the debate between Intentionalism and Functionalism, the basic outline of how the ‘Final Solution’ came about is this: Hitler had no ‘master plan’ for ridding Europe of all of Jews, but the Holocaust came about due to pressure from top and bottom in Nazi Germany hierarchies and a need to answer ‘The Jewish Question’ that the Nazis had created for Europe as they rose in power. This would explain why other options were tried before murder became the default. Understanding the intricacies that went into the development of the Final Solution helps historians and everyday people understand how complicated the human condition is, especially when viewed through the lens of historical research.
Foot Notes:
[1] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution. Vail-Ballou Press. Binghamton, New York 2008. 33
[2] Herf, Jeffrey. The Jewish Enemy. 3 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971 [1925]). 679.
[3] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution. 52.
[4] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 26
[5] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution. 54.
[6] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution. 58.
[7] Puschner, Uwe. “The “völkisch-religiöse Bewegung” in the Long Fin De Siècle and National Socialism.” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte30, no. 1 (2017): 162–74. www.jstor.org/stable/26393754
[8] Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship. London: Edward Arnold. 2000. 97.
[9] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science450 (1980): 37. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[10] Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. 2020. Excerpts from Mein Kampf. 294. Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/excerpts-from-mein-kampf#1
[11] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution. 50.
[12] Jewish Virtual Library. “The Nazis and the Jews: The Madagascar Plan”. Yad Vashem; Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2008 Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-madagascar-plan-2
[13] Jewish Virtual Library. “Encyclopedia Judaica: Haavara”. Yad Vashem Studies, 2 (1958), 179–204. Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/haavara
[14] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 41. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science450 (1980): www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[15] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 34.
[16] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 40. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[17] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 40. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[18] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 40. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[19] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Kristallnacht”. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht
[20] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 42. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[21] Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship. London: Edward Arnold. 2000. 97.
[22] Götz, Aly. ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews. Arnold, in Association with Oxford University Press, London/NY, 1999. 214.
[23] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Einsatzgruppen: An Overview”. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/einsatzgruppen
[24] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 42. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
[25] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 33.
[26] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 42.
[27] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 27.
[28] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 32.
[29] Niewyk, Donald L. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler’s Decisive Role”. 36
[30] Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?”. 43–44. www.jstor.org/stable/1042557
