Who was responsible for the holocaust?

[Gustaf]

Darfur?

Anyhow, I think the question needs to be defined a little more. Do you mean fully responsible, mostly responsible, partly responsible? It seems that the point you're trying to make here is that the German people (of the time) do have to shoulder part of the blame for the Holocaust. With that I agree. However, the time to stop Hitler was really at a much earlier stage. Once the Holocaust actually got started in earnest, towards the end of WWII, it isn't really feasible to expect a people, during a time of war, after a decade of indoctrination and brainwashing, to rise up and protest against the treatment of a group they had been taught were their enemies. So, if we're talking about who has to carry most of the burden of responsibility for the Holocaust, it's the Nazis, under the above definition.

[Gustaf]

Darfur's in Sudan.

Darfur?

Anyhow, I think the question needs to be defined a little more. Do you mean fully responsible, mostly responsible, partly responsible? It seems that the point you're trying to make here is that the German people (of the time) do have to shoulder part of the blame for the Holocaust. With that I agree. However, the time to stop Hitler was really at a much earlier stage. Once the Holocaust actually got started in earnest, towards the end of WWII, it isn't really feasible to expect a people, during a time of war, after a decade of indoctrination and brainwashing, to rise up and protest against the treatment of a group they had been taught were their enemies. So, if we're talking about who has to carry most of the burden of responsibility for the Holocaust, it's the Nazis, under the above definition.

There is no doubt about the truth of that, but what one must note is that Hitler's ideas on Jewish people (and other 'inferiors' plus his foreign policy) were well out in the open well before 1933 (one only has to read Mein Kampf). And in the end, who gave Hitler his power in the first place. Many members of the NSDAP by the time of the holocaust would probably never have been members if it were not the party in power. Individual careerism took hold. One only has to look at Eichmann.

Btw, I mean "who is more responsible, or who should take the responibility".

Oh...see, I know very well that Darfur is in Sudan, but I read Sudan in the original post and then thought I read Sudan in Bono's post. Now I echo his sentiment; though I suppose Colin was referring to the stuff going on a decade ago I don't think it quite qualifies as a genocide.

I understand your reasoning but I disagree that the Holocaust was obvious as early as the early 30s. After all, Hitler himself only decided on it in the 40s. And I don't quite think that one can call on people to have that much foresight. I would still maintain that the "Nazis" in this example has to be viewed as being more responsible. If you take WWII instead of the Holocaust though I'd be inclined to agree with you.

[Gustaf]

Directly or indirectly? If you mean directly, then it would be the Nazis. But, if you mean indirectly, then it would be Woodrow Wilson and Fraklin Delano Roosevelt. Wilson is indirectly responsible for the Holocaust because his unfair Verssailes Treaty led to a radical like Adolf Hitler getting elected in Germany. FDR was also responsible because he provoked Japan to attack us, thus getting the U.S. into World War II. Hitler's original plan was to send the Jews to Madagascar, but when FDR declared war against Germany, Hitler responded by going to Plan B: Extermination.

Oh, come one.  Do you really buy that stuff?  THe Nazis had already killed thousands of Jews in Poland and Russia before Dec 1941 rolled around, and if they had not intended to build the camps, then they must have swtiched gears pretty quick, because they were fully functional within months of when the US got in the war.

There was no "Plan B".  "Plan A" had always been extermination, and if you don't believe me, it is all laid out in Mein Kampf.  The only people who didn't believe Hitler meant what he said about killing Jews were the Western leaders who couldn't imagine it.

Okay, but can you deny that Wilson's unfair Versailles Treaty is what made the Germans mad enough to elect the NSP in Germany?

Obviously not since they weren't elected in the wake of the Versailles Treaty but a decade later. Sure, it contributed but as Old Europe points out the Depression was really the main factor behind it. What you're spouting is really just Hitler's own old propaganda.

[Gustaf]

It is partly true that the Holocaust accelerated because the Nazis were losing the War. But I don't really think that makes it the fault of the Allies...

[Gustaf]

It's no mystery.  Stop placating your own emotions by saying "well, Hitler was a madman... plain and simple".  80,000,000 people can't be completely insane.

Also wasn't Hitler very persuasive with his speeches and addresses?

My grandfather was in Germany for work in the late 30s and went to a Nazi rally with a friend to scowl at it (he was very much anti-Nazi and later married my grand-mother, a Jewish refugee). As he stands there and everyone is heiling he turns to his friend and sees that his hand is in the air. He then looks at his own hand and find that it is also up in a salute. At that point he took his friend with him and walked out. But to sum up, yes, it was probably very easy to get carried away by Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine, much more so than we can grasp today.

[Gustaf]

The British and French governments were mainly responsible for giving Germany its terrible condition in the 1920s and early 30s.  The NSDAP merely played on the German's anger about the Treaty of Versailles and brainwashed them to support the nazis.  The NSDAP is mainly to blame for the Holocaust.  Prescott Bush, Britain, France, and many others share small parts of the blame. 

GERMANY DID NOT START THE 1ST WORLD WAR!  It, like every other European nation in the war, was entangled in an alliance, which did cause the war.  France and the UK are just as much to blame for that war as Germany.

The MAIN responsibility for WWI must fall on Austria-Hungary, who really pushed for the war. But being a more traditional European war, no country seriously tried to avoid it.

[Gustaf]

I blame those who supported making Hitler dictator, including  the Catholic Centrist party. That is why centrists suck. You take a position half way between the Social Democratic party, and  Adolf Hitler, and call yourself a centrist? Fine, but that doesn't mean that you aren't an extreme fascist. 

Only the SDP voted against the Enabling act and the expulsion of the Communist party from the Reichstag. All the other parties (except of course the Communists) voted to make Hitler be dictator.

This is a huge over-simplification, which you should know. The position was rather half-way between Communists and Nazis. See, this is why extremists suck because they force reasonable people to the side-lines picking bad alternatives. The Catholic Centrist Party was heavily opposed to Hitler but tried to make the best out of a very sticky situation. They obviously made the wrong choice, but that was not out of Fascism. As opposed to the many Communists who turned Nazi, many of the Christian Democrats also ended up in concentration camps or resistance movements.

But I guess truth would intrude on your simplistic black-and-white view of the world.