The Intentionalist Arguments For The Holocaust

During the Holocaust the mass murder of Jews was a worldwide tragedy and when a tragedy happens usually your first question is why? The two groups of devoted researchers for the Holocaust are split into the Intentionalist group and the Functionalist group. As said by Mimi-Cecilia Pascoe in Intentionalism and Functionalism: Explaining the Holocaust “The Intentionalist position suffers greatly from a lack of adequate evidence, and consequently cannot prove Hitler’s intentions beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the Functionalist position is better able to compensate for the lack of evidence, and thus provides a more solid historical explanation for the Holocaust (Pascoe 1).” The ongoing argument of whether the Holocaust was intentional …show more content…
Most of the evidence gained to prove Hitler intended to murder thousands of innocent people has been based around Hitler's significance in all of the decisions made in the Holocaust. Hitler controlled everything that went on with concentration camps and raids and such so there was no way he did not intend to kill the Jews because when he made the order to do so, which is proved by the British decodes of German radio transmissions that Jews were the principal targets of large-scale Nazi violence against civilians from the start (Pascoe 1), he knew that it would cost jews their lives. The main researchers that support the Intentionalist argument are Ebnerhard Jackel, Helmut Krausnick, Gerald Flenin, & Lucy Dawsdowicz; they have devoted their lives to finding the truth about Hitler’s intentions and have done a great job at gaining significant evidence helping make their Intentionalist argument stronger. Although the Intentionalist’s argument have some evidence proving it’s claims, it also has many holes in its argument such as how they have no proof of any reason Hitler would have such a burning passion to kill the Jews; Intentionalists try and cover these holes by saying that Hitler was an evil and deceptive man that would stop at nothing to kill Jews but they have no evidence to prove his lying nature or his desire to kill off the …show more content…
The Functionalists have evidence of the transfer of political powers to Hitler out of pure disorganization ,as seen in (Pascoe 3), and if they could not organize their government to be stable enough to have more than one person controlling every aspect of the country's well being how does one think they could perfectly plan the kidnapping and torturing of thousands and thousands of Jews. Also, a Functionalist Breitman argues that it is incorrect to look generally at Hitler’s political ideology prior to WWII, link such evidence with speeches made during the war regarding the destruction of the Jews so he explores only the interior evidence for the planning of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a radicalization of genocide: a planned attempt to physically annihilate every single member of a targeted ethnic, national, or racial group (Bauer 12). If the definition of the Holocaust is about a targeted race that hints that it was preplanned because the targeting was in the name

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