week 5 discussion hist 642
Block A
Explain the nature of the relationship between the various military and police organizations, as well as the impact that mass murder had on the men in question. Explain the varying degrees of German complicity with the mass murder, and identify those groups who appeared to have the most culpability. Analyze how Hitler organized his government, how the departments functioned, and how this method of control assisted in the development of the Final Solution. Describe and contrast and perceptions and attitudes of the participants within the German military. The more difficult question is: how was it humanly possible that ordinary men and women, loving fathers and husbands, could participate willingly in the murder of innocent men, women, and children?
Block B
One common observation made in regard to German policies of this nature is that had the Germans invaded the Soviet Union as “liberators”, to free the people from communism, they could well have caused the rapid collapse of the Soviet government, and gotten them the quick victory they desired. Why then did they come as exterminators rather than liberators? Given the nature of Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the German state was it even possible for the Germans to be “liberators” of the Soviet Union? Is this even a valid question – in other words, was there any conceivable set of circumstances under which Hitler, his Nazi Party, and the Wehrmacht would have invaded the USSR to “liberate” it rather than exterminate it?
Block C
Einsatzgruppen means “task forces.” The SS set up such units before they entered Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union. The task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to terrorize the local population and murder anyone whom the SS deemed undesirable. The most infamous Einsatzgruppen of all were formed before the invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941. Their primary task was to destroy what they regarded as the ideological infrastructure of the Soviet Union: political commissars, members of the Communist party, and above all, Jews. Which German units took part in the murder of the Jews? What were the gas vans? When and where were they used? What role did non-German civilians play in the murder of Jews? What happened at Babi Yar? How did the Nazis try to hide their atrocities?