Who was responsible for the holocaust?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Note: When I mean "Germans" I refer to the majority of the German adult populace, regardless of class or status, but not members of the NSDAP or the goverment . When I refer to "Nazis" I mean the German goverment of 1933-1945 and all it's apparatus, including the whole NSDAP.

I vote Option one.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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".