IDP 4U1 Honours Thesis

IDP 4U1 Honours Thesis Name: Shauna Delaney

STEP 5: Thesis Formation

Achievement: Thinking / InquiryTOTAL: marks

1. Topic:

My topic is the reasons ordinary Germans became willing executioners of the Jews in
WWII.

2. Controversial Questions:

Why would so many Germans become actively involved in the mass extermination

of the Jews in WWII?
Thesis Statement:
Many Germans became actively involved in the mass extermination of the Jews in WWII because of conformity, obedience, and Anti-Semitism forced upon the German people by their Government.
Example: This is a good essay because it has a clear thesis, strong arguments, and excellent writing style. / Argument 1 – Conformity
Most SS men, einsatzgruppen and other groups of men that were locked into the obligation of executing Jews did not whole heatedly want to kill. One of the reasons that they followed through with orders to kill was because of conformity. They did not want to act out of ranks in fear of their comrades thinking they were cowards. It was easiest for the men to act withideal SS man behaviour. / Evidence(s) to support Arg#1
•The battalion had orders to kill Jews but each individual did not. 1
•To break ranks and to act with nonconformist behaviors was beyond most men and it would be easier for them to just shoot.2

By breaking ranks non-shooters were leaving the “dirty work” for their comrades. It was like refusing one’s share of an “unpleasant collective obligation”3

•Those men who did not shoot risked isolation, rejection, and ostracism (A tight-knit unit among a hostile population, so the individual literally has no where else to turn for support.)4
•It was considered extremely disrespectful to one’s comrades because not shooting indicates that he is “too good” and better then the rest.5
Argument 2 – Obedience
There was a known standard of obedience to orders in the military as there still is today.Men believed that if they did not follow through with orders they would be either immediatelyexecuted or sent to concentration camps. Most men felt they had no choice but to execute the Jews. The men knew that whether or not they shoot the Jews or one of their comrades, the Jews were going to be killed regardless. / Evidence(s) to support Arg #2
•The ruthless enforcement of discipline created a situation were most individuals felt they had no choice but to kill. 6
•Men believed that disobedience surely meant concentration camp if not immediately executed, possibly for their families as well.7
•Trial after trial in postwar Germany, perpetrators said they were in a situation of impossible “duress” and could not be held responsible for their actions. 8
•Although no defense attorney or defendant in any of the hundreds of postwar trials has been able to document a single case.9
•But, even if the consequences of disobedience were not as dreadful as thought, the men who complied could not have known that at the time. 10
Arguments 3–Anti-Semitism
It was not the ordinary Germans fault that they felt such hatred towards the Jews. The Government had been imbedding these feelings into the hearts of Germans for many years before the outbreak of WWII. It was in their schooling, workplace, and general everyday society. / Evidence(s) to support Arg #3
•Germans had been told for years, through literature, popular media, political speeches and the medical establishment that the Jewish pose a threat to the “Kultur” (the German concept and influence of a particular Germanic attitude, spirit, temperament, ambition, achievement, and purpose.) 11
•It was not cultural propagandists who organized the “special treatment of the Jews.” It was the public health officials, scientific journals, and physicians who created the Anti-Semitist feelings. They ultimately believed that the Jews were endangering their lives.12
•The government did not want to hold back this information from the civilians. This started many years before the outbreak of WWII.13
•Germans felt that they had been chosen to accomplish this massive sanitation project. 14
•Psychiatric professors believed in euthanasia, not as Nazis, but as responsible physicians. 15
•Jews were believed to be “carriers of sickness” and it only reinforced their beliefs when they were put into ghettos. They were horrible places where people would live 15 to a room and real, not fantasized, diseases would rise. 16
•“If one sees others as polluted, infected matter dangerous to the culture, one sees not human beings with feelings, capable of pain, and eliciting pity and empathy.” 17
•This creates an enthusiasm to kill and remove the object provoking such intense fear. 18

4. FOOTNOTES FOR EVIDENCE 1, 2, 3 etc…:

Evidence / Footnote (proper format)
1 / Browning, Christopher R. "Daniel Goldhagens Willing Executioners." Review Essay (2002).
2 / Browning, Christopher R. "Daniel Goldhagens Willing Executioners." Review Essay (2002).
3 / Browning, Christopher R. "Daniel Goldhagens Willing Executioners." Review Essay (2002).
4 / Goldhagen, Daniel J. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1996.
5 / Goldhagen, Daniel J. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1996.
6 / Rosen, James. "Willing Executioners." The American Spectator (2005): 70-73.
7 / Rosen, James. "Willing Executioners." The American Spectator (2005): 70-73.
8 / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia War Crime Trials.
2000. 21 Oct. 2006 <
9 / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia War Crime Trials.
2000. 21 Oct. 2006 <
10 / Rosen, James. "Willing Executioners." The American Spectator (2005): 70-73.
11 / Glass, James M. Life Unworthy of Life. United States of America: Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc., 1997.
12 / Glass, James M. Life Unworthy of Life. United States of America: Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc., 1997.
13
14 / Glass, James M. Life Unworthy of Life. United States of America: Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc., 1997.
15 / Klee, Ernst, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess. Those Were the Days. Great Britain: Hamish
Hamilton, 1991.
16 / Moses, A. D. "Structure and Agency in the Holocaust: Daniel J. Goldhagen and His Critics."
History & Theory 37.2 (1998).
17 / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia War Crime Trials.
2000. 21 Oct. 2006 <
18 / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia War Crime Trials.
2000. 21 Oct. 2006 <

5. Write down 3 counter-arguments that you will be refuting in your essay:

The likelihood of any SS man ever having suffered punishment for refusing to kill a

Jew is very small. No case was able to withstand scrutiny in the Nuremberg trials.

If the majority of a group’s members opposes an act then the social psychological

pressure would work to prevent, not encourage, individuals to undertake the opposed act.

Germans had a natural hatred towards the Jews and the Anti-Semitism was not

brought on through the Government.

6. Please attach a TYPED updated list of sources (full bibliographic MLA format)

•Browning, Christopher R. "Daniel Goldhagens Willing Executioners." Review Essay (2002).

•Fackenheim, Emil L., and David Patterson. "Why the Holocaust Is Unique." Judaism 50.4

(2001).

•Glass, James M. Life Unworthy of Life. United States of America: Harper Collins Publishers,

Inc., 1997.

•Goldhagen, Daniel J. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

New York: Random House, Inc., 1996.

•Klee, Ernst, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess. Those Were the Days. Great Britain: Hamish

Hamilton, 1991.

•Van Liempt, Ad. Hitler's Bounty Hunters: The Betrayal of the Jews. New York: Oxford

International Publishers Ltd., 2005.

•Moses, A. D. "Structure and Agency in the Holocaust: Daniel J. Goldhagen and His Critics."

History & Theory 37.2 (1998).

•Rosen, James. "Willing Executioners." The American Spectator (2005): 70-73.

•United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia War Crime Trials. 2000. 21 Oct. 2006 <

•The History Place. Holocaust Timeline. 1997. 21 Oct. 2006 <

•Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. United States of America: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. 1992