Diversity and Design: The „Twisted Road“ and the Regional Turn in Holocaust History
Recent developments in Holocaust historiography highlight the pervasive diversity characteristic of Nazi anti-Jewish policies. This article suggests that two conflicting interpretations of diversity have informed discussions. In one view, diversity is seen as the expectable result of the vast scope and scale of the war. In this conception ("diversity as outcome"), empirical diversity by itself has little diagnostic value and little direct bearing on the inference of intentionality or design. A contrasting view considers diversity itself to be a driver of policy ("diversity as process"). Variability thus becomes an indicator of lack of prior design. The diversity-as-process narrative has been fundamental in classic functionalism and in many important analyses that emphasize the major causal role of conditions at the periphery in the development of the Holocaust. A parallel debate about diversity in social action has taken place in psychology, but reached conclusions very different from those of the historical analyses. Closer empirical analysis and a cross-disciplinary approach together suggest that "process" conceptions of diversity reflect an unrealistic view of human action—one that leads to an excessively restrictive view of design in the Holocaust.
Quelle: http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/27/3/387?rss=1
Transition to Genocide, July 1941: Einsatzkommando 9 and the Annihilation of Soviet Jewry
In the wake of the German attack on the Soviet Union, the expansion of the mass killing of Soviet Jews to include women and children in effect signaled a transition to genocide. The timing of this transition remains one of the most hotly debated questions in Holocaust historiography. Alex J. Kay outlines the activities of the Einsatzgruppen during the first five weeks of Operation Barbarossa, and describes the military and security context of the decision to expand the mass murder. On the basis of hitherto neglected postwar testimony, he establishes when, how, and from whom the first of the commandos received the order to institute genocide, and how this commando implemented the order in practice.
Quelle: http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/27/3/411?rss=1