New Paths, New Directions: Reflections on Forty Years of Holocaust Studies and the GSA

Conferences organized by Saul Friedlander in Paris in 1982 and by Eberhard Jäckel in 1984 in Stuttgart raised one of the most fundamental questions of the Holocaust: to what extent did the Holocaust have its own Sonderweg? The argument centered on how much of the physical extermination of the Jews was planned from the beginning. At an earlier conference, historian Tim Mason coined the terms "intentionalism" and "functionalism" to describe two ways of interpreting the functioning of the Nazi state. Intentionalists like Lucy Dawidowcz contended that [Hitler] was firmly in control of the "Final Solution" and intended from the beginning to murder the Jews of Europe, given the opportune moment. These scholars emphasized the ideological motivations and top-down control of the perpetrators and often relied heavily on Hitler's own words in Mein Kampf and other texts. On the other hand, functionalists such as [Raul Hilberg], Martin Broszat, and Karl Schleunes argued that the extermination of the Jews represented the last in a series of decisions made by lower level functionaries, evolving over time, and building a "twisted road to Auschwitz" as Schleunes titled his 1970 book. This school viewed the decision to murder the Jews of Europe as the culmination of a "cumulative radicalization" (as Hans Mommsen termed it) that arose from Hitler's subordinates attempting to divine his desires through ever more extreme plans. While not discounting antisemitism, functionalists argued that situational factors contributed to the "Final Solution" at least as much. They failed to find a smoking gun in Hitler's earlier texts as intentionalists did. The so-called "intentionalist-functionalist debate" led scholars to more closely investigate the timing and circumstances of the decision to murder the Jews of Europe. Interest in these questions at the GSA grew over time. A panel in 1983 entitled "From Anti-Semitism to Extermination" featured [Christopher R. Browning]'s paper "Launching the Final Solution," as well as new work by Sybil Milton.2 In 1985, Browning presented again on "Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941," the same year in which former GSA President [Konrad H. Jarausch] spoke at the luncheon on "Perils of Professionalism: Lawyers, High-School Teachers, and Engineers in Nazi Germany." By 1986 interest had grown: that conference included a panel on the legacy of Nazi medicine, one entitled "On writing the History of the Na