Amongst the various acts of barbarism and repression in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s the Nazi-led Holocaust was distinct. Discuss

        Arguably though, Ruiz points out that the Franco regime was guilty of genocide as genocide is defined by Lemkin at the Nuremberg trials as the ‘destruction of national, racial, religious or political groups.’ Franco was guilty of the destruction of political groups that stood in his way to power. Additionally, the release of tens of thousands of Spanish prisoners in the early 1940s fits in with the argument that for the Franco regime ‘the Spanish working classes became what the Jews were to that other, more notoriously renowned Volksgemeinschaft.’

        However the Franco regime and the military rebellion of July 1936 was only concerned with protecting Spain from ‘internal enemies’ such as left-wing Popular Front organisations and Catalan and Basque nationalists. Given the established tradition of military intervention in civilian affairs, the military rebels saw themselves as re-establishing ‘the principle of authority.’ In the context of the failure of the rebels to take control of the Republican state, and the fragmentation of power in the Nationalist zone, the re-establishment of ‘the principle of authority’ often meant the physical elimination of ‘internal enemies.’ Preston also argues that Francoism was merely the latest in a series of military efforts to block social progress in Spain. Additionally, the terror of the fascist regime never ended. Political assassinations took place regularly in order to ensure that the enemies of the state were crushed. Just a few months before his death in 1975, Franco signed orders for five executions that were politically motivated.

        Stalin’s Russia was a totalitarian government, there was only one party allowed - the ruling party. In Stalin's Russia this meant that the Communist Party was supreme. All criticism and opposition was eliminated. The people were expected to be totally loyal to the state and to the person at the head of the government. Stalin ruled as a dictator, commanding his people with absolute power. He conducted many purges against his rivals and introduced a new constitution which reinforced his power. The secret police helped to build up his image and keep him in power.  Wheatcroft believes that although the atrocities and purges within Russia happened at the same time as Nazi terror, they were caused by totally independent factors.  Stalin was impatient when groups got in his way to power whereas Hitler was anti-Semitic.

        The death toll Maier believes in the Soviet Union between 1926-1953 was estimated to be around 20 million. This in effect is substantially higher than the 6-7 million that took place in Nazi Germany.  However the deaths that took place in soviet Russia were predominately due to Stalin’s paranoia. Stalin felt insecure as people were questioning his leadership, his methods and his policies. Many people were unhappy with the harshness of his five year plans. Stalin also faced criticism from within the party and politicians who were overly critical of Stalin were at risk. Sergei Kirov was one of Stalin's closest supporters and in 1934, the party boss of Leningrad. At the 1934 Party Congress, Kirov switched sides and began criticising Stalin and his harsh policies. As such, Stalin decided to take action against Kirov who was emerging as a potential rival for leadership of the Party. On 1st December 1934, Stalin had Kirov assassinated. On the same day, Stalin passed a law that ordered anyone accused of terrorism and plots against the government was to be arrested and executed immediately after conviction. This law gave Stalin the chance to carry out the Great Purges properly and easily without any resistance. This is evidence of Stalin removing any political enemies that would hamper his total power.

        Davis believes that Stalin’s paranoia played a vital role in the terror that took place in the state.  Stalin had become very suspicious that there would be an attempt to overthrow him and he therefore began to move his most trusted followers to key positions within the Party and the country. Stalin’s paranoia also saw the introduction of the Gulag camp, these were a string of harsh labour camps set up throughout the country at key points to get raw material and help the industrialisation process, even making prisoners work in the harsh winters of Siberia.   Stalin used the Gulag camps to maintain the Soviet state by keeping its populace under an everlasting state of terror. He implemented this system to in essence get rid of a population of about 20 million people under his rule. This large amount of people ranged from criminal prisoners to politicians, and even innocent people caught in bad situations.

        Therefore, Joseph Stalin helped transform the Soviet Union into a military and industrial superpower, but at a staggering cost in human lives and suffering. In the words of scholar Stephen Cohen, Stalin's rule was a "holocaust by terror" that "victimized tens of millions of people for twenty-five years." Stalin's drive for total control, and his pressing need for convict labour to fuel rapid industrialization, next spawned the series of immense internal purges -- beginning in 1935 -- that sent millions of party members and ordinary individuals to their deaths, either through summary executions.

        

        The Nazi – led holocaust was a distinct event that took place in European history. Despite the fact that there have been countless horrific acts of terror and injustice perpetrated throughout history, the characteristics of the holocaust make it distinct from these other tragedies. Browning bring across two views on the Nazi holocaust. The ‘intentionalists’ view focuses on Hitler’s ideology. They believe that that the course of the Third Reich was determined by the decisions of Hitler. Hitler had decided on the mass murder of the Jew’s in the 1920’s and from then on worked with consciousness and calculation toward that goal. The other view is that of the ‘functionalists,’ who focus on the structure and institutions of the Third Reich and explain the events that took place in Nazi Germany as unplanned ‘cumulative radicalisation.’ They believe that the mass murder occurred without any specific and comprehensive Hitler decision or order.  Bell further explains the difference between German Nazism and Fascism. He explains that Nazism was deeply rooted in the racial theories and Social Darwinism of the nineteenth century, whilst Fascism was unconcerned about race. Racism became a state policy with the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws which gave greater clarity into how to define a Jew, furthermore Jews were isolated and humiliated from all parts of society.

The Holocaust was a unique event as the extermination of the Jews had no political or economic justification. It was not a means to any end; it was an end in itself. The killing of Jews was not considered just a part of the war effort, but equal to it.  Thus, all the resources that could have been used in the war, industry, science, medicine were diverted instead to the project of systematic murder.  Hitler and the Nazis were methodological and extremely efficient in their attempts to wipe out the Jewish race. The Einsatzgruppen first began to execute thousands of Jews alongside mass graves but this proved a long and demanding process and was deemed inefficient. The Wannsee Conference was then held in order to coordinate the activities of the various agencies involved in order to ‘maximise the efficiency of the solution as it was carried a stage further.’ It was at this conference where ‘Zyklon B’ gas was established as the way forward in exterminating the Jews efficiently and quickly. The view of the ‘intentionalists’ is extremely strong here, as the Nazis did everything in their power to systematically murder the Jews in the most efficient way possible.  The highest number of the gassings that could take place in one day at Auschwitz was 10,000. This idea of systematic and efficient mass murder did not occur anywhere else in history.

Without detracting in any way from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated against all victims of Nazism including gypsies, Poles and homosexuals, it seems that major distinctions exist between their Jewish and non-Jewish victims. Only the Jews were singled out for total destruction. From the ideological principles formulated in Mein Kampf to the original anti-Jewish legislation in Germany of the 1930s, the Jews were singled out as the focus of German wrath. According to the Commentaries to the German Racial Laws of 1936: "The Blood Protection Law deals with the segregation of Jewish and German blood from the biological point of view… As an acute danger threatened the German people from Jewry alone, the law aims primarily at the prevention of further mixing of blood with the Jews.’ Browning further explains that the major turning point was in July 1941 when Hitler extended the killing process to the rest of Europe’s Jews. Furthermore the government-sponsored pogroms in November 1938 did not include Polish nationals or businesses or Catholic churches. Mass Jewish emigration was Germany's goal at that point. The formulation of the "Final Solution" to the Jewish problem in January 1942 did not treat the Polish or Russian ethnic problem or outline worldwide extermination of homosexuals, but dealt exclusively with the anticipated extermination of the 11 million Jews of Europe. At no point did any plan for the total murder of any other population exist formally or informally other than of the Jews.

Interestingly enough the distinction of the holocaust can be seen through the lack of intervention of various governments worldwide.  The persecution of Jews between 1933 and 1945 unfolded without organised official opposition from any government in the world, despite the fact that details of growing persecution against Jews began to be internationally known as early as 1933. Certainly the terrifying details of Kristallnacht were widely publicized in the international press by correspondents who, in many cases, were eyewitnesses of the events they reported. Yet it took the invasion of Poland in September 1939 (ten months later) before the Allies, who at that point were required to intervene by their own treaty obligations, began military intervention in the affairs of Europe. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the world’s apathy at the unfolding horror in Europe was not in part a result of underlying subtle anti-Semitism. The nations of the world had numerous opportunities as the events leading up to and during the Second World War unfolded to take measures that might have confined the damage done to the Jewish population of Europe. None of these steps was taken until far too late.

        In conclusion, the holocaust was a distinct and unique event in history as it was the only time where a state set out to annihilate every single man, women and child from a specific race, the Jewish race. Jewish birth was sufficient to warrant the punishment of death and policies were implemented to let the Nazis carry this task through. The events surrounding the holocaust took place for political reasons only yet innocent murder also occurred. The holocaust was genocide of innocent peoples deemed inferior or unproductive and the Nazis did everything in their power to destroy every last Jew.

Bibliography:

• Carr Raymond, Fusi Juan Pablo, Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy, ( London 1979)
• Burleigh Michael, Wipperman Wolfgang, The Racial Sate Germany 1933-1945(Great Britain 1991)
• Browning, Christopher R. The path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (1992 Cambridge)
• Bell, Philip Michael Hett, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, (1996)
• Cohen, Stephen F. "Bolshevism and Stalinism." In Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation, (1999)
• Wheatcroft Stephen ‘The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45(1996)

• Davies Sarah, Popular opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Terror propaganda and Dissent 1934-1941 (1997)
• Fitzpatrick Sheila, Everyday Stalanism: Ordinary life in extraordinary times. Soviet Russia in the 1930’s (1999)
• Preston, Paul ‘ A concise history of the Spanish Civil War,’ 1996

 

 

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