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Functionalism versus '''intentionalism''' is a Historiographical debate about the origins of The Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy. The debate on the origins of the Holocaust centers on essentially two questions:
The terms were coined in a 1981 essay by the British Marxist historian Timothy Mason . Notable functionalists have included Raul Hilberg , Christopher Browning , Hans Mommsen , Martin Broszat and Zygmunt Bauman . Notable intentionalists have included Andreas Hillgruber , Karl Dietrich Bracher , Klaus Hildebrand , Eberhard Jäckel , Richard Breitman,Daniel Goldhagen and Lucy Davidowicz . A separate, but closely linked, debate concerns the nature of Hitler’s power. On one side, there is the “weak dictator” thesis championed by Mommsen and Broszat, and on the other the “Master of the Third Reich” thesis championed by Bracher. If Hitler was a “weak dictator”, then this would support the functionalist case, whereas if Hitler was the “Master of the Third Reich”, this would support the intentionalist case. It is important to note that neither side disputes the reality of the Holocaust, nor is there serious dispute over the premise that Hitler was responsible for encouraging the Anti-Semitism that allowed the Holocaust to take place. Thus, the debate between functionalism and intentionalism, which is considered a topic of legitimate academic debate, is different from Holocaust Denial , which is regarded as Pseudo-history among academic historians. EXTREME INTENTIONALIST INTERPRETATION Extreme Intentionalists believe that Hitler definitely had plans for the Holocaust by 1924 , if not earlier. Davidowicz argued that Hitler already decided upon the Holocaust no later than by 1919 . To support her interpretation, Davidowicz pointed to numerous extreme anti-semitic statements made by Hitler. Criticism has centered around the fact that none of these statements refer to killing the entire Jewish people; indeed very few refer to killing Jews at all. Only once in Mein Kampf does Hitler ever refer to killing Jews when he states that if only 12,000 to 15,000 Jews had been gassed instead of German soldiers in World War One , then 'the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain'. Given that Mein Kampf is 694 pages long, Davidowicz's critics contend that she was making too much of one sentence. Intentionalist historian Daniel Goldhagen goes further to suggest that popular opinion in Germany was already sympathetic to a policy of Jewish extermination before the Nazi party came to power. He explains in his book “Hitler’s willing executioners” that Germany enthusiastically welcomed the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime in the period (1933-9). MODERATE INTENTIONALIST INTERPRETATION Moderate Intentionalists such as Richard Breitman believe that Hitler had decided upon the Holocaust sometime in the late 1930s and certainly no later than 1939 or 1941 . This school makes much of Hitler's "Prophecy Speech" of January 30 , 1939 before the Reichstag where Hitler stated if "Jewish Financers" started another world war, then "...the result would be the annihilation of the entire Jewish race in Europe". The major problem with this thesis, as Yehuda Bauer points out, is that though this statement clearly commits Hitler to genocide, he made no effort after delivering this speech to have it carried out. Furthermore, Ian Kershaw has pointed out that there are several diary entries by Paul Joseph Goebbels in late 1941, where Goebbels writes "That the Fuehrer's prophecy is coming true in a most terrible way". The general impression one gets is that Goebbels is quite surprised that Hitler was serious about carrying out the threat in the "Prophecy Speech". EXTREME FUNCTIONALIST INTERPRETATION Extreme Functionalists such as Götz Aly believe that the Nazi leadership had nothing to do with initiating the Holocaust and that the entire initiative came from the lower ranks of the German bureaucracy. Aly has made much of documents from the bureaucracy of the German Government-General of Poland arguing that the population of Poland would have to decrease by 25% to allow the Polish economy to grow. Criticism has centered around the fact that this explanation does not really explain why the Nazis would deport Jews from France and the Netherlands to death camps in Poland if it was Poland the Nazis were concerned with and why indeed the Jews of Poland were targeted instead of the random sample of 25% of the Polish population. MODERATE FUNCTIONALIST INTERPRETATION Moderate Functionalists such as Christopher Browning believe that the rivalry within the unstable Nazi power structure provided the major driving force behind the Holocaust. Moderate Functionalists believe that the Nazis aimed to expel all of the Jews from Europe, but only after the failure of these schemes did they resort to genocide. This is sometimes referred to as the 'crooked path' to genocide. SYNTHESIS A number of scholars such as Yehuda Bauer , Ian Kershaw and Michael Marrus have developed a synthesis of the Functionalist and Intentionalist schools. They have suggested the Holocaust was a result of a dynamic that came from both above and below and that Hitler lacked a master plan, but was the decisive force behind the Holocaust. The phrase 'cumulative radicalisation' is used in this context to sum up the way extreme rhetoric and competition among different Nazi agencies produced increasingly extreme policies. REFERENCES
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