Intentionalism v Structuralism

• Intentionalism


  Stresses the centrality of the Nazi program and ideology in the planning of the Holocaust
• Structuralism


  Contends that the Judeocide was a bureaucratic and systematic dynamic unleashed by increasingly urgent efforts to solve the so-called 'Jewish question'
• Tim Mason came up with the terms intentionalist and structuralist


  1981
• Intentionalists


  • Lucy Dawidowicz (1915-1990)
  • Gerald Fleming (1921-2006)
• Intentionalists


  • Identified the ideology and goals of the Nazi leadership as the sole or primary determinants of Nazi policies
• Structuralists


  • Martin Broszat
  • Hans Mommsen
• Structuralists


  • Stressed the importance of bureaucratic, regional, or local initiatives, competition between party and government, and other more or less contingent factors in the development and implementation of Nazi policies
• After the war, structuralists argued SS and state administrators resorted to increasingly brutal methods to free their territories of Jews once the option of forced emigration was no longer considered practical
• Ian Kershaw's concept of "working towards the Fuhrer"


  Attempts to reconcile structuralism and intentionalism