Overview

This module explores the history of the mass murder that is labelled with the term Holocaust: the many different authorities and actors involved, the different situational conditions and opportunity structures that had to be in place, and the complexity and discontinuity in this process of radicalisation towards genocide. Pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, the reading and interpretation of primary sources are an essential part of the module. In its reading of these primary sources, the module will address a key historiographical question: was the development and implementation of the Final Solution a centralised or decentralised event?

Indicative course content list: • The Godesberg Declaration (April 1939): the pro-Nazi German Christians affirmed the Church’s ‘responsibility for keeping our people racially pure’ and insisted that there was ‘no sharper contradiction’ than that between Judaism and Christianity. • Jud Süß (1940): Nazi propaganda film produced at the behest of Joseph Goebbels. • Adolf Hitler's Speech at the Berlin Sports Palace (January 1941): mentioning his earlier prophecy of the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe, now expressing the hope that an increasing number of Europeans would follow the German antisemitic lead. • Diary of Iryna Khoroshunova (October 1941): providing a detailed account of the Babi Yar massacre, the shooting of more than 30,000 Kiev Jews in a ravine near the city. • Minutes of the consultation between Walter Gross, head of the racial policy office of the NSDAP, and Hans Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery (October 1941): discussing policies towards the Jewish 'Mischlinge', a pejorative legal term which was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed 'Aryan' and 'non-Aryan' ancestry. • Avraham Tory, Kovno Ghetto Diary (February 1942): detailing daily events in a Lithuanian ghetto, such as the obligation to hand over all books on pain of death. • Telegram by Werner von Bargen, German Foreign Ministry representative with the military high command in Brussels (July 1942): on the deportation of the Belgian Jews. • Ruth Kluger, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, passage describing her transport from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz (June 1944). • Zalman Gradowski, 'The Czech Transport' (March-April 1944): a chronicle of the Auschwitz 'Sonderkommando' (a work unit composed of prisoners who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims) by one of its members. • Victor Klemperer, diary (March 1945), reporting a conversation with a German woman on 'the Jewish question' near Dresden during his eventually successful escape into US-controlled territory.

Assessment Strategy

Threshold students (40% to D+) will have done only a minimum of reading, and their work will often be based partly on lecture notes and/or basic textbooks. They will demonstrate in their written assessments some knowledge of at least parts of the relevant field, and will make at least partially-successful attempts to frame an argument which engages with historical controversies, but they will fail to discuss some large and vital aspects of a topic; and/or deploy only some relevant material but partly fail to combine it into a coherent whole; and/or deploy some evidence to support individual points but often fail to do so and/or show difficulty weighing evidence (thereby relying on unsuitable or irrelevant evidence when making a point). Alternatively, or additionally, the presentation of the work might also be poor, with bad grammar and/or punctuation, careless typos and spelling errors, and a lack of effective and correct referencing.

Students in this band (C- to C+) will demonstrate a satisfactory range of achievement or depth of knowledge of most parts of the module, and will make successful, if occasionally inconsistent, attempts to develop those skills appropriate to the study of History at undergraduate level. In the case of the written assessments, the answers will attempt to focus on the question, although might drift into narrative, and will show some evidence of solid reading and research. The argument might lose direction and might not be adequately clear at the bottom of this category. Written work will be presented reasonably well with only limited errors in grammar, punctuation, and referencing, and not to the extent that they obscure meaning.

Good students (B- to B+) will demonstrate a solid level of achievement and depth of knowledge in all the criteria in the C- to C+ range and will in addition exhibit constructive engagement with different types of historical writing and historiographical interpretation. Ideas will be communicated effectively, and written work will include a good range of sources/reading and demonstrate a clear understanding of the issues and of the existing interpretations expressed in a well-structured, relevant, and focused argument. Students at the top end of this band will engage with and critique the ideas that they come across and synthesise the various interpretations they find to reach their own considered conclusions. Written work will be correctly presented with references and bibliography where appropriate.

Excellent students (A- and above) will show strong achievement across all the criteria combined with particularly impressive depths of knowledge and/or subtlety of analysis. In written work, they will support their arguments with a wealth of relevant detail/examples. They will also demonstrate an acute awareness of the relevant historiography and give an account of why the conclusions reached are important within a particular historical debate. They may show a particularly subtle approach to possible objections, nuancing their argument in the light of counter-examples, or producing an interesting synthesis of various contrasting positions. Overall, the standards of content, argument, and analysis expected will be consistently superior to top upper-second work. Standards of presentation will also be high.

Learning Outcomes

• Analyse individual pieces of historical evidence very closely – particularly setting them in context, judging their qualities as evidence, and explaining their significance vis-a-vis the historiography.

• Critically analyse a range of primary sources concerning the Holocaust (1939-1945) and use them in historical arguments with reference to current historiography.

• Demonstrate critical knowledge of various aspects of the Holocaust (1939-1945), including both the history of the perpetrators and the victims.

• Judge between competing interpretations of the Holocaust and its context (including current historiographical positions).