For numerous years following the Second World War there was no significant debate among historians in relation to the origins of the war. The view that was extensively accepted, even by German historians, is now defined and defended by many historians known as the Intentionalists. The Intentionalists include the British Historians Alan Bullock and Hugh Trevor Roper and German scholars for instance Klaus Hildebrand. Their view is that Hitler had caused the war by his policy of deliberate aggression in Europe, against Poland and then against Britain and France. In 1941 he broadened this war when Germany attacked the Soviet Union and declared war on the United States. It was accepted that Hitler had a clearly defined plan, created as early as 1924 in Mein Kampf, and that after he was assured power he began the process of carrying this plan out. Hitler planned to undo the settlement imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and create a greater Germany by bringing back into the Reich those Germans who had been cut off by the peace treaty. Ultimately, he planned to acquire vast territories in Eastern Europe that would be Germany’s Lebensraum or living space. The aims were deliberate and clear and included the use of force to eliminate Russia and Bolshevism. In 1939 his deliberate attack on Poland, the gateway to Russia, caused the western powers, who had tried negotiation, to declare war. Unlike the First World War the responsibility was clear.
Other historians, including the German historians Karl Dietrich Bracher and Eberhard Jäckel, are the so called Intentionalist School, for the war was based on the intent of Hitler and they see Hitler as they key element in bringing the Finals Solution into being. They argued that “The Final Solution was intended and everything Hitler said about the Jews, he meant.” They see Hitler’s ideology and will power as crucial to any explanation of why the war developed.
The Intentionalists view of the Holocaust centres on Hitler’s own strong anti-Semitism and his long-standing desire to exterminate the Jews. This interpretation proposes a clear and logical path from Hitler’s original anti-Semitic views for preparing the physical extermination of Jews during the Second World War. One of the most well-known supporters of this view is Lucy Dawidowicz. In her book, The War against the Jews (1975), she argues that “…the plans for destroying the Jews were always part of Hitler’s thinking”. There had never been any ideological deviation or wavering determination. In the end, only Füher set the stage for mass murder in September 1939, with the attack on Poland. “War and the annihilation of the Jews were interdependent.” Therefore, the war was a deliberate scheme to cover-up the solution to the ‘Jewish question.’
Alan Bullock is an Intentionalist historian. He supposes that “In the Europe of the 1930’s there were several leaders who would have liked to follow such a policy, but lacked the toughness of will and the means to carry it through. Hitler alone possessed the will and had provided himself with the means. Not only did he create the threat of war and exploit it, but when it came to the point he was prepared to take the risk and go to war. For this reason, despite all we have learned since of the irresolution and shabbiness of other governments’ policies, Hitler and the nation which followed him still bear the primary responsibility for the war which began in 1939.”
Daniel Goldhagen is the author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1997), the book is an indictment of the vast number of German’s who directly or indirectly took part in Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. He convincingly demonstrates that the murders and tortures of the Holocaust were not SS men, not even Nazi Party members but normal, decent family men and women. He claims “There was a ‘straight road’ to the Holocaust, which was the inevitable outcome of a longstanding desire shared by Hitler and a great majority of Germans to ‘eliminate’ Jews from German society. The ordinary Germans who participated in the Holocaust were ‘Hitler’s willing executioners’”. According to Goldhagen, “The Holocaust was the inevitable outcome of long-standing anti-Semitic attitudes in German society, and Hitler was merely the catalyst who unleashed these pent-up desires within German society to eliminate the Jews.”
Intentionalists argue that without Hitler, the Holocaust would not have occurred. Indeed, during the nineteenth century, Jews gained civil equality by legislative enactment over all of Germany. Additionally, many past leaders were Jewish, such as Ludwig Bamberger, Hugo Preuss and Theodor Wolff. Therefore, the public were not anti-Semitic originally and this anti-Semitism was most likely created by Hitler.
A primary topic of debate between intentionalists and structuralist historians is whether Hitler was a strong or weak dictator. Intentionalists never question the central role of Hitler, and the idea that he knew of, promoted and issued a direct order for the ‘Final Solution’. Since Hitler’s power was ‘comprehensive and total’, he must have known and approved all matters concerning the ‘Jewish Question’. Intentionalists argue that documents verify that Hitler was directly involved in discussions in late September and early October concerning quite specific details of initial deportations, and the difficulties involved.
From the summer of 1941 new extermination camps were set up throughout the occupied territory in the east, particularly in Poland. Soon Jews from all Nazi-occupied Europe were rounded up and sent to these camps, where it is estimated that as many as 3.5million died. Historians of the Intentionalist School, including Jäckel and Hillgruber, argue that “Hitler made the decisions to set up the camps in the summer of 1941 in the expectation of an imminent Russian collapse”. Nazi’s tried to keep the Holocaust a secret, however, Nazi’s said that Hitler knew about the Holocaust, some even said he authorised them and that it is most probable that he ordered it.
The Intentionalist perspective is that Hitler alone is to blame for the Holocaust. The Structuralist interpretation for the responsibility of the Holocaust is that, everyone is responsible and the structure of society, the world and human nature itself lead to the Holocaust. Hitler was anti-Semitic; however whether he really intended to kill the Jews isn’t clear. One reason is because; there is a problem of language translation. Hitler referred to the ‘removal’ and ‘eradication’ of Jews and their influence, which could mean resettling them elsewhere, weakening their position or mass killing. No document signed by Hitler ordering the Jews to be killed has been found. Although, many of his instructions were purely oral and other documents verify he was involved in discussion.
The two historical schools of thought that have emerged around the question of the origins of “The Final Solution”, is very difficult to sort out and have made the Holocaust so incomprehensible for a half-century now and will probably remain unsolved forever.
