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Functionalists vs. Intentionalists

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Functionalists vs. Intentionalists

 

The article “Functionalists vs. Intentionalists” by Richard Russell is a debate on the ideologies of Functionalism or Intentionalism as major schools of thought in the governing of and within the Holocaust history. The article mainly relies on the Cumberland Conference of 1976 where the debate was held.  The two terms are a description of one of the most enduring examples of historians’ debates within the history of the holocaust. It is usually common that within the framework of a historical narrative, in this case, the holocaust, there are debates on the willpower significance and actions of individuals shaping the development of history, this is Intentionalism. Then there are the constraints formed by the objectives of the individual, which is functionalism.

The school of Intentionalism argues that the holocaust should be explained exclusively through the willpower and decision-making capabilities of Adolf Hitler. The school of functionalism, on the other hand, holds that the holocaust should be examined primarily on the dominant factors. These dominant factors according to this school are; how Hitler pit departments against each other, individual advocacy, the entangled structure of the Reich, and the Nazi ideological enterprises. The debate here is not concerned with expressing Hitler’s control over The Third Reich; this is because Hitler had assumed control long before the war. It is not also a concern for his influence in shaping extermination policy. It is instead a concern on the impulses attached to the government policy as it unfolded.

The Cumberland Lodge conference of 1979 remains a major milestone in the books of history of the Third Reich. The theme of the conference was “The National Socialist Regime and German society”. The conference provided platforms for sharp disagreements about the place of Hitler in the decision making processes of his empire. These disagreements were named “Functionalist” and “Intentionalist”. These disagreements have, however, continued to disappear over time. “…in 1985, Ian Kershaw concluded that, ‘Intention’ and ‘Structure’ are both essential elements of an explanation of the Third Reich, and need synthesis rather than to be set in opposition to each other” (Bessel R, 2003, Pg. 15).

The historical landscape of the Third Reich has altered considerably since the conference. It is now well known than it was two and a half decades ago about the functioning of the Nazi regime. The carrying out of the genocide policies as well as how racialism permeated almost all the aspects of the Nazi politics, how their wars were fought, degrees to which local initiatives by leaders went to support the mass murder and the responsibility of Hitler in supporting genocide and war are all factors of history that are now clear and well understood. Most of the Nazi or German historians who have come to discover and put these findings on the limelight are to some extent both Intentionalists and Functionalists (Bessel R, 2003, Pg. 16). This is evidence that the controversy which erupted in disagreements during the conference between the two ideologies no longer exists and they seem to lie in the graveyard of historiographical concerns.

The controversy about functionalism and Intentionalism has been removed from the frontline of historical controversies due to many reasons. Most of these reasons are interrelated and have been emerging over time since the conference. The opening of new archival sources after the collapse of the former Soviet Bloc allowed historians to understand and see how decisions were being made during the regime. The decisions led to the death of millions of people in White Russia, Galicia, Ukraine, and Lithuania among many other places (Bessel R, 2003, p. 17). Another development was the demise of the famous Marxism as a dominant historical and sociological paradigm. The appeal on the structural explanations which concerned with the relationship between capitalism and fascism and also that of class and class conflict has faded. This is because they appeared inadequate before the principal challenge facing any historian at that time seeing as they were more concerned with explaining the greatest crimes in human history (Bessel R, 2003, p. 16).

Historians from the 1970s decided to take a more different approach. They focused on some underlying logic, embedded in the decision making process and the materialistic conception of history, of ignoring individual human responsibility. In this case of Nazism, the individuals made judgments and not calls. The monstrous acts conducted by these individuals came from within and were not forced on them. Robert Leitch, for instance, wrote of Hitler’s executioners “…This is in the first instance not a historical but rather a moral book – not a report but a judgment” (Bessel R, 2003, p. 18). People became more fixated with the Functionalist and Intentionalist paradigms that they lost sight of the fundamental trivialization which was at the core of the Cumberland Conference those many years ago. The debate was and is supposed to be about the morality and the moral obligations of historians.

In conclusion, the Intentionalist and Functionalist schools of thought in explaining the holocaust history are no longer opposing ideologies. The stakes of studying the history were not just based on easily understanding the decision making processes in Nazi Germany, or the hierarchy of leadership. The debate, all along, was and still is, about the Nazi Germany morality and the moral obligations of the Historians. This is the “New History” of “Third Reich”. Much of the recent work of Nazi Germany, some of which is quite impressive, is mainly on morality surrounding the regime.

 

 

References

Richard Bessel. 2003. Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever Happened Functionalism and Intentionalism? Vol. 26 pp. 15-20 Published by German Studies Association

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