Hist
2c, L 17: Genocide, WW2 & the Holocaust
(Auschwitz and World History)
by Prof. H. Marcuse, May 27, 2003
Announcements:
- Draft of 2nd paper
MUST be submitted stapled to the final version of your paper.
- CLAS workshops: Wed. 6pm,
Thu. 4pm
- "Historical Witness" of World
War II on Thursday
Specific question:
Why do people commit atrocities, and how do they do it?
"Global" question:
What can we learn from studying history?
Short
Answer 1
"Global" question:
What can we learn from studying history?
Review of Nietzsche's
3 types of history (from the article in the reader): Monumental, Antiquarian,
Critical.
Note that I used Nietzsche's
"Uses and Abuses" in the title of my book about post-1945 Dachau.
Short Answer 2
Why should we study
history?
Life is complex.
There's
more to it than "facts."
Why I studied history:
Dachau (1956)
Why I studied history:
Dachau (1970)
EIeio
Causes of Atrocities
Economic:
- Ottoman empire: decline ca.
1900
- Germany: hyperinflation 1923;
depression 1929
- International:
- territorial losses; intervention
(or lack thereof)
- Elites/lEader: intentionalism
vs. functionalism
- old: prop up status; new: gain
power & exercise it
- Info/Ideology: superiority,
enmity/danger/fear
- getting down to root
causes (eugenics/euthanasia)
- PeOple: the ones who believe
it all
Rudolf
Höss (1900-1947)
- Volunteered (underage) in WW
I
- Free Corps after war, then Nazis
- Training in Dachau since 1933
rose through the ranks to become commandant
- Concept of "preemptive obedience"
- Reinhard Heydrich
- Adolf Eichmann
Film clip
Erwin Leiser: Mein
Kampf (My Struggle), 1961
- Battle Stalingrad (Oct. 1942-Feb.
1943): turning pt.
Hitler speech, Nov. 8, 1942 (anniv. of 1923 coup)
compare Battle of Gettysburg
- Use of forced labor: 4,795,000
people
- Westerbork (camp Holland) footage
+ Auschwitz at liberation (How historians view sources!)
- Rudolf Hoess & Zyklon B
(Prussic acid) gas
Summer 1944: 400,000/60days=6,600 people/day
- Warsaw Ghetto uprising, April-May
1943
- Warsaw City uprising, April
1944
lecture by H. Marcuse on 5/27/03; outline
prepared for web on 5/28/03.
back to top, to Hist 2c homepage