‘Assess the view that the German people were active and enthusiastic supporters of the Holocaust’.
The holocaust has justly been described as one of the greatest atrocities in the modern world. Thus since the allies liberated the Nazi’s concentration and extermination camps there has been much focus on who was responsible for the holocaust and death of millions. Immediately after the Second World War historians such as Thomas Fleming generally adopted an ‘intentionalist school of history’ viewpoint blaming solely Hitler for the holocaust. However the current viewpoint, shared by Kershaw, is the current consensus which recognises the key role of Hitler but also the role of the German people who Johnson believes “supported [the regime] from the beginning to the end” .
The view that the German people were active and enthusiastic supporters of the holocaust is supported by critic Daniel Goldhagen. Goldhagen argues that the “Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) were as an integral part of the holocaust as the Einsatzgruppen and the notorious SS were” . However these men were not leading Nazi figures like Himmler or Goering but regular Germans often chosen in a haphazard manner. Their willingness to actively slaughter Jews supports the view that ordinary Germans were active and enthusiastic perpetrators. The Order Police included Police Battalion 101. This battalion served its second life as a genocidal cohort with its men engaging “wholeheartedly in the extermination of European Jewry” . The men undertook jobs which included numerous killing operations against Jews such as shooting thousands dead and deporting thousands of them to the gas chambers. By assessing the background of the battalions men one can see the extent to which the men represented the German people. Looking at their ages, which is an average of 36.5 it is clear the men weren’t young and impressionable so in that sense represented the German people. Moreover their day jobs included skilled and...