Language:
English
Year of publication:
1994
Titel der Quelle:
Studies in Contemporary Jewry
Angaben zur Quelle:
10 (1994) 139-163
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
National socialism Historiography
;
Antisemitism History 1933-1945
Abstract:
Deals with one of the main trends in recent Holocaust historiography - the attempt to "historicize" the Holocaust, to place it in the framework of modern European history, and not to regard it as an extraordinary and inexplicable event. Focuses on works published in the 1970s-90s by a number of historians, especially by C. Browning, A. Mayer, G. Mosse, B. Lang, and G. Aly and S. Heim. Contends that the wish to view Nazism and the Holocaust in a wider historical context, to present them as being a result of the inner development of European civilization, is justified. However, these authors fail to explain why the Nazis were so fixated on the "Jewish question". Occupied mostly with the motivation and behavior of the middle-rank Nazi leadership, historians neglect the small but powerful Nazi elite which conceived and planned the genocide of the Jews. States that Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust will continue to be a fluid field, marked by a plurality of approaches and perspectives.
Note:
Appeared also in his "Culture and Catastrophe" (1996) 115-135.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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