The Holocaust Involved the Deliberate, Systematic Murder of Approximately Six Million Jews

Participation in the Holocaust

Shauna Delaney

Mr. Cotey

IDP 4U1 Honours Thesis

December 18, 2006

Participation in the Holocaust

By: Shauna Delaney

The Holocaust involved the deliberate, systematic murder of approximately six million Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe between 1941 and 1945. It was perhaps the most savage and significant single crime in recorded history; yet it remains, on many levels, an unfathomable mystery.

Between the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 and the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Nazi Germany and its accomplices strove to murder every Jew under their domination. Because Nazi discrimination against the Jews began with Hitler's rise to power in January 1933, many historians consider this the start of the Holocaust era. The Jews were not the only victims of Hitler's regime, but they were the only group that the Nazis sought to destroy entirely.

There are other historical events similar to the Holocaust, but the Holocaust has characteristics that, in the opinion of many scholars, make it unique. 1) unlike their policies toward other groups, the Nazis sought to murder every Jew everywhere, regardless of age, gender, beliefs, or actions, and they invoked a modern government bureaucracy to accomplish their goal; and 2) the Nazi leadership held that ridding the world of the Jewish presence would be beneficial to the German people and all mankind, although in reality the Jews posed no threat.[1] Grounded in a spurious racist ideology that considered the Jews "the destructive race," it was this idea, more than any other, which eventually led to the implementation of the murderous policy known as the Final Solution.[2]

In WWII, in order to carry out the plans for the Final Solution many ordinary people, Germans in particular, became actively involved one way or another in the Holocaust. Though the events that took place during this destructive era have been thoroughly documented and almost endlessly studied, there is still no sure agreement on several issues. What many Historians still question are the motives that led these ordinary people to aid in the annihilation of the entire Jewish population of Central Europe.

Numerous ordinary people became actively involved in the mass extermination of the Jews in WWII because of anti-Semitism throughout Germany and much of the world, because of the need to conform and obey, and because of the terror the Nazi regime instilled in its people.Although the actions of many people during the Holocaust seem unbelievable, one has to remember the norm of this time period.

Anti-Semitism was wide-spread throughout Europe and the expression of this hatred was not uncommon. As well, the motivations of those Germans who stayed silent need just as much analysis as the direct executionersthemselves. What circumstances and mind sets were these people trapped in that allowed them to accept these completely irrational acts?

There have been countless historical debates about who should bear the blame after the release of Daniel Goldhagens’s “Ordinary German’s and the Holocaust.” This essay, although, is not prepared to direct blame for the Holocaust, but instead, answer the question of why there were so many contributors to the mass extermination of the Jews.

Similar to Germany, much of the world was anti-Semitic prior to WWII, but that did not lead any other countries to a mass genocide of their Jews. Just because there was anti-Semitism in Germany does not solely justify the reasoning behind the Holocaust. Just prior to World War Two much of the world was anti-Semitic, especially Europe.In the summer of 1938, Hungary and Yugoslavia closed their borders with Austria, while fascist Italy halted Jewish immigration.[3] The British government decided in the spring of 1939 to close off Palestine to Jewish immigration, while offering no alternative haven for Jewish immigration.[4] In 1938 Great Britain instituted a special new visa requirement sorting out Third Reich Jews from other refugees.[5] The French government of Prime Minister Daladier declined to offer even a symbolic objection to Nazi Germany’s barbaric Kristallnacht pogrom.[6] The official delegates from Hungary, Poland, and Romania used the opportunity to propose that they too be relieved of their Jews.[7]

Anti-Semitism was spread even as far as North America. Reports about the upcoming sailing of the "St. Louis" fueled a large anti-Semitic demonstration in Havana on May 8, five days before the ship left Hamburg. The rally, the largest anti-Semitic demonstration in Cuban history, had been sponsored by Grau San Martin, a former Cuban president. Grau spokesman Primitivo Rodriguez urged Cubans to "fight the Jews until the last one is driven out." The demonstration drew 40,000 spectators. [8]

Even as late as April 1943 at the Bermuda Conference, American and British representatives in possession of knowledge of Nazi atrocities against Europe’s Jews continued to display little interest in altering existing policies on Jewish refugees. [9] Anti-Semitism was not an exclusive trait to just Germany prior to WWII. These examples prove that there was anti-Semitism in much of the world. Even though Great Britain, France, United States, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia were anti-Semitic, it did not lead them to a mass genocide of their Jews as it did in Germany. The “Final Solution” was not “the” solution for the Jewish “problem” in many countries because their leaders were not exploiting the underlying anti-Semitic feelings in their people as Hitler was.

After the world turned its back on the German and Austrian Jews, through propaganda, Hitler was able to exploit the underlying anti-Semitic feelings in the German people by using the Jews as a scapegoat for all of Germany’s problems. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came into power in Germany in 1933, prejudice against people of the Jewish faith was not a new concept. [10]

Jews had been the objects of hatred in many societies for centuries. Throughout history, the Jews had been discriminated against by nearly all groups of people. Driven nearly two thousand years ago by the Romans from the land now called Israel, they spread throughout the globe and tried to retain their unique beliefs and culture while living as a minority.[11] In some countries Jews were welcomed, and they enjoyed long periods of peace with their neighbors. In European societies where the population was primarily Christian, Jews found themselves increasingly isolated as outsiders.[12]

In more desperate times, Jews becamescapegoats for many problems people suffered. For example, they were blamed for causing the "Black Death," the plague that killed thousands of people throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.[13] In Spain in the 1400s, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, leave the country, or be executed. In Russia and Poland in the late 1800s the government either organized or did not prevent violent attacks on Jewish neighborhoods, called pogroms, in which mobs murdered Jews and looted their homes and stores. The Jews were accused of horrific crimes and blamed for the misfortunes of their communities.

While clearly the Nazis did not initiate anti-Semitism in Europe, they used it as a foundation to help them succeed in their work of destruction.[14]Some politicians began using the idea of racial superiority in their campaigns as a way to get votes. Karl Lueger was one such politician. He became Mayor of Vienna, Austria, at the end of the century through the use of anti-Semitism -- he appealed to voters by blaming Jews for bad economic times.[15] Lueger was a hero to a young Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria in 1889.[16]

Hitler's ideas, including his views of Jews, were shaped during the years he lived in Vienna, where he studied Lueger's tactics and the anti-Semitic newspapers and pamphlets that multiplied during Lueger's long rule.[17] When Hitler seized power in 1933, Joseph Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world.[18]

As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture.[19]His most virulent campaigns were against the Jewish. As a hypnoticorator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed.[20]

(Two propaganda posters commissioned by Joseph Goebbels)[21]

The Nazi party molded the common anti-Jewish views of the German people, to fit their master plan for genocide. Perhaps, the most widely known anti-Semitic ideal produced by Hitler and his followers is that which ascribes anti-Semitism to racism. For years, anti-Semites hated Jews for their beliefs, and for the threat their beliefs posed to the ruling power of the time.[22] The Germans took these ideas one step further, and built their hatred on what they considered to be an unchangeable scientific system.[23] In this way, the `Jewish question' became an issue of birth and blood, no longer belief.

Despite what was going on in Germany, the anti-Semitism already present in other countries lead to their collaboration which was a crucial element of the "Final Solution." A number of German allies (the Axis countries) cooperated and even aided the Nazis in many forms. The Hlinka Guard in Slovakia, the Iron Guard in Romania, the Ustasa in Croatia, and the Arrow Cross in Hungary were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews in their home territory.[24] The pro-Nazi Ustasa government of Croatia built its own concentration camps.[25]Bulgaria cooperated with the Nazis in deporting its foreign Jews.[26] Romanian police and military units murdered both deported Romanian Jews and Ukrainian Jews in Romanian-occupied Ukraine.[27] Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians spontaneously formed groups which the German SS and the police then organized; these units became ruthless and reliable police auxiliaries that supported the SS and German police in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union.

The government of VichyFrance cooperated with the Nazis by enacting the Statut des Juifs (Jewish Law), which defined Jews by race and restricted their rights. Vichy authorities also actively collaborated by establishing internment camps in southern France, arresting foreign Jews and French Jews, and aiding in the deportation of Jews (mostly foreign Jews residing in France) to extermination camps in occupied Poland through their own railways (SNCF).[28] Norwegian police and paramilitary formations assisted SS and German police units in the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. [29]

During the time period of WWII, it is an undisputed fact that anti-Semitism was wide spread though out the world. The levels of Anti-Semitism were relatively equal country to country before Hitler came into power. Once Hitler rose to power the anti-Semitic levels soared throughout Germany because of Hitler’s appointment of Joseph Geobbels and his hypnotic propaganda dexterity. The reason why other countries did not resort to a “Final Solution” is because they did not have a leader comparable to Hitler. Although other European countries did not instigate the genocide, the anti-Semitism already present did lead them to aid Hitler with his plans for the “Final Solution.” The collaboration of Axis nations and pro-Nazi governments was essential for the Nazis to implement the "Final Solution." Pro-Nazi governments and police aided in the arrest and deportation of Jews to extermination camps, actively participated in the murder of Jews, and in several cases committed atrocities against their Jewish fellow citizens within their own nations. The invasive propaganda campaigns Hitler ran in order to increase anti-Semitic feelings throughout the country is what led Germans to resort to the mass genocide of the Holocaust.

The reason why SS men killed was never because they felt they had to, they were aware of their right to refuse murder. Many arguments have been brought up regarding SS men feeling their life or family’s lives were endangered if they refused to kill Jews. This, however, was never the case.

Statement of teleprinter engineer Kiebach, Einsatzgruppe C:

“ I myself was detailed to the firing-squad; however, I only managed to shoot about five times. I began to feel unwell, I felt as though I was in a dream. Afterwards I was laughed at because I couldn’t shoot any more. A private or lance-corporal from the Wehrmacht, I don’t know which unit, took my carbine from me and went and took my place in the firing-squad. It was obvious that I was in no state to go on shooting. The nervous strain was too great for me. When I am asked whether I was reprimanded for my refusal, I have to say this was not the case.” [30]

Statement of Wilhem Findeisen, Sonderkommando 6:

“The people, i.e. the officers, then gave orders for these two people to be shot. One of the officers said to me, ‘Findeisen, shoot these people in the neck.’ I refused to do this as did the other men. The girl must have been about eighteen or nineteen. The other officer shot the people himself as the others refused. He swore at us and said we were cowards, but apart from that he did nothing else.” [31]

The Testimony of an auxiliary policeman from Einsatzkommando Stalino:

“It was made clear to us that we could refuse to obey to participate in the Sonderaktionen [‘special actions’] without adverse consequences. [32]

There were innumerable accounts such as the ones above that bear witness to the fact that the SS men were aware of their right of refusal. There were only fourteen cases presented in the Nuremberg trials in which it was claimed that the punishment for refusing to carry out an execution order (not only of Jews) was either death (nine), imprisonment in a concentration camp (4), or the transfer to a military penal unit (1). Although not one of these above cases was able to withstand scrutiny in the Nuremberg trials.[33]

Despite the enormous effort to unearth such cases and the enormous incentive that all perpetrators had for providing such evidence, it can only be concluded that the likelihood of any SS man ever having suffered such punishment for refusing to kill a Jew is small. It can be concluded that the only reason this excuse ever surfaced was to save the executioners for being charged with war crimes in the post war Nuremberg trials.

Like in any military, there is a set of “unwritten” rules in place that every soldier feels obliged to follow and the circumstances of the SS men are no different. Even if the SS men were aware of their right to refuse to shoot Jews,it was conformity andobediencewhich made them feel caught in this state of mandatory execution. The main reasons SS men felt the need to conform were peer pressure, isolation and the natural fundamentals of mob mentality. The notion of peer pressure, namely the desire not to let down one’s comrades or not to incur their censure could move individuals to undertake actions that they oppose.[34]

Peer pressure is a very influential social situation. Not only can it been seen at work with the SS men, but it can be seen in a more commonly endured environment of schools and cliques. The testimony of Wilhem Findeisen and Kiebach stated above, show that even thought they refused to shoot they were still looked down upon and seen as cowards. Other SS men may not have been as brave and could not incur the shame from their comrades.As well, refusing to shoot constituted refusing one’s share of an unpleasant collective obligation.[35] With the men already being in a state of isolation from the outside world the last situation they would need is to be further isolated from their comrades, into a state of ostracism.

Another frequently debated topic of “the willing executioners” is mob mentality. The Holocaust is a clear example of two factors at work. One is described by the "boiling frog" theory, which says that an enormous change will not be noticed if it occurs in gradual steps.[36] The other factor is the primal and powerful mechanism of herding, which ensures that individuals conform to the group.[37] Together, these factors make conforming to the group a stronger impulse than breaking out, even if the individual does not agree with what the group is doing. So long as the gradual changes in group behavior are small, herding can eventually take the group towards a state that is far removed from past behavior and is more and more extreme.