e-eyed German, was the master race. And yes, there were death camps built specifically constructed to kill and dispose of the unwanted, the useless. Yes, the Nazis were extreme anti-Semitic propagandists. But what divides the functionalists from the intentionalists are the interpretations of three major points: (1) How one chooses to judge Hitler, (2) The time span between March of 1941 and the following autumn, (3) How one follows the rhetoric of the Nazi party.First, one must take a close look at the leader of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler. He became chancellor in 1933 and Fuhrer in 1934, but his anti-Semitic propaganda began long before then. The Nazi campaign against the Jews started as early as 1929. There is no argument that Hitler hated and blamed the Jewish people for Germany’s economic downfall following World War I; he even went so far as to blame them for the loss of the war itself. According to intentionalists “Hitler is seen as the driving force of Nazi anti-Semitic policy…” (Marrus, 35). Intentionalist Lucy Dawidowicz argues that starting with Hitler’s attack on Poland in September 1939, he used the war to create confusion, to cover up his intentions of mass murder (Marrus, 35). Hitler ran the Third Reich through verbal orders, rarely communicating with underlings, rather than official documentation. Raul Hilberg refers to this as “government by announcement” (Marrus, 34). Hitler’s obsession with Jewish genocide became clearer as his plan to overthrow Russia evolved (Krausnick, Marrus, 34). Helmut Krausnick claims, “It could not have been later than March 1941, when he openly declared his intention…he issued his secret decree-which never appeared in writing though it was mentioned verbally on several occasions-that the Jews should be eliminated.”Functionalists argue that the Third Reich was a constant power struggle between individuals and po...
