The story of the six million Jews who perished during the Second World War has been retold through film, literature and art

German historians are the ones who are closest to this issue.  They face the problem of trying to write an objective history while having strong national ties to their home country.  During the mid-1970s there was a huge controversy between German historians.  The controversy “became known in Germany as the Historikerstreit, the historians’ conflict.  The central issue has been whether Nazi crimes were unique, a legacy of evil in a class by themselves, irreparably burdening any concept of German nationhood, or whether they are comparable to other national atrocities, especially Stalinist terror”.  However, the Historikerstreit debate seems to be a thing of the past.  “The “War of the German Historians” that started quietly in the mid-1970s before it finally escalated into a noisy international dispute in 1986 has ended in an uneasy truce.”  Influential German historians include Ernst Nolte, Andrea Hillgruber and Jurgen Habermas.  

Jewish historians are very close to the Holocaust and it has been said that no one could write such a sensitive account of the events of the Holocaust than those who have experieinced it directly.  Jewish historians have contributed the most to the advancement of the study of the Holocaust.  Jewish historians tend to combine historical reseach with persoanl memoirs of their lives and how they were directly affected by the Holocaust.  Many writings from Jewish historians are emotional and moving.  The downside is that they may be to close to the issue to provide an unbiased account of the events.  “Jewish historians are still too preoccupied with the building blocks and the scaffolding of the historical structure to be able to see it in the landscape of historical time.  They are still too close to the events.  They are still mourning the loss of their past.” 

An important historical debate is whether or not Hitler had any premeditated plan to murder the Jews of Europe.  The two main schools of thought in this discourse are called the ‘Intentionalist’ and ‘Functionalist’ schools.  Historians have published many volumes of work to try to find an explanation to this question.  The functionalist school tried to explain how the development of the Holocaust “through the history of the social and economic structures of German society”.  They argue that the authoritarian regime happened because of social, economic and political crisis.  They admit that racism and anti-Semitism was in the background of Germany but they alone did not lead to the extermination of the Jews.  

There are many important functionalist historians.  Goetz Aly wrote a book entitled Endlosung (Final Solution).  This book does not deal with the Final Solution itself but rather the events and decision making process leading up to it.  Aly “explains that there was no overall plan, no central decision to murder the Jews”.  Another functionalist is Karl Schleunes who wrote The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy Towards German Jews: 1933-1939 in 1970.  Another functionalist attempts to explain the Holocaust is Martin Broszat, who states that Hitler’s Anti-Semitism is merely a ‘mobilizing tool, rather than a direct source of action’.  Broszat suggests that a direct order from Hitler for the Holocaust to move forward was never given.  Finaly we have Hans Mommsen who has been referred to as the chief spokesperson for the functionalist school.  Mommsen asserts that the main reason for the implementation of policy was not Hitler but the interrupted dicision making precess of the government. He goes on to say that Hitler had not been the crazed agitator or extremist but rather usually supported the less radical solution.  Famous historian Raul Hilberg usually falls under the category of funtionalist as well.  Hilberg wrote The Destruction of the European Jews in 1961.  Hilberg arrives at the conclusion that the order to start the genocide need not even have been given.

         However, the functionalists fail to address two main problems. First they do not answer how such a sophisticated program of extermination with so many resources involved could come about without some type of direction from above.  The second issue that the functionalists fail to address is the fact of the moral issues involved in sending millions of people to their death.  They answer the question of how the event unfolded.  However, the did not delve into where this event originated or what allowed a significant number of people to participate in the genocide.  These historians did not see a moral issue with mass murder or if they did their work there was a way to justify their actions to themselves.

        Intentionalist historians argued that “Hitler’s intentions, and therefore his role, in the process leading up to the Holocaust are central because of the godlike position he occupied in the regime; the other Nazis were an indispensable supporting cast”.  Intentionalist historians feel that Hitler had intended for the destruction of the Jews before the outbreak of war in 1939.  However, the intentionalist school of thought has had a hard time proving Hitler’s intentions toward the Jews in the early twenties and thirties because he never rreally said what he would do with the Jews but there are some strong hints in his book Mein Kemf.   The outburst of hatred and hints towards future extermination was the focus of Lucy Dawidowitz book The Holocaust and the Historians.  Dawidowitz asserted that Hitler waited until a predetermined time until he could carry out his grand plan.  Hitler started on his plan to systematically remove the Jews from normal German life through legislation and increase the general population’s hatred of Jews through propaganda.  He also actively supported ‘spontaneous’ acts of violence like ‘Krystalnacht’ to promote hatred of the Jewish enemy. The intentionalists see this gradual increase in the severity of violence and exclusion as as part of Hitler’s ultimate plan of Jewish extermination.  Other important intentionalist historians include Eberhard Jackel, Helmut Krausnick and Gerald Flemming.

Even if the intentionalists put forward a strong case to show that they believe Hitler to be the driving force behind the Final Solution, it still does not provide answer as to why so many Germans participated in, or collaborated with, the Nazis. What allowed such a horrific event such as genocide on such a large scale to become acceptable? Daniel Goldhagen is a historian who tried to answer this question in his 1966 book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.  Goldhagen attributed this German willingness to kill Jews as a result of the anti-Semitism that existed in German society prior to the rise of Hitler.  He says that there were many Anti-Semitic currents in Germany, and that what Hitler managed to do was to attract the most violent of them (the eliminationist kind) into the mainstream. Once ‘ordinary Germans’ were convinced then they were able and willing to carry out Hitler’s orders.  Many historians have a problem with Golhagen’s thesis because they say it is too simplistic.  Christopher Browning especially found fault with Goldhagen’s work and their famous debate is around whether or not the perpetrators were ‘ordinary men’.  

Another interesting trend in the aproaches looking at the history of the Holocaust is the split between Empirical and Humanist historians.  Empirical historians are the ones “working largely on the decision-making process and mechanics of the ‘final solution’”.  Empirical historians deal with records left behind by the Nazi’s as well as court records and other official documents relating to the murder process.  They are focused more on the perpetrators then on the victims of the Holocaust.  Humanist historians are the historiographers and scholars in philosophy, literature, politics, sociology, geography and art history who write about “what can broadly be termed ‘representations of the Holocaust’”.  These historians work with diaries and images from the Holocaust.  They also rely on accounts by eyewitnesses.  The focus is clearly on the victims of the Holocaust.  Lawrence Langer is famous for working with survivors’ oral testimonies.  “His work with former victims reveals the way in which the invasion of the past into the present that is caused by ‘deep memory’ reminds us that historians cannot simply write about the Holocaust as if it were over and done with.”  Historians must be sensitive to the survivors who provide oral accounts but at the same time they must be careful not to over-exaggerate or under-exaggerate the victim’s story.

An examination of the history of historians’ work on the Holocaust is perhaps too ambitious considering the volume of work on the subject.  In recent years there has been an increase in interest on the subject.  Nevertheless, some divisions can be found depending on the nationality of the historian and whether they are a functionalist or intentionalist or whether they practice an empirical or humanist approach.  However, in recent years there seems to be a merging in the different approaches to examine the Holocaust.  Historians are starting to agree more and they are beginning to try to examine the Holocaust as a whole rather then break it up into smaller parts.  More and more historians are looking to the Holocaust to see what it teaches us about humanity.