Who was responsible for the holocaust?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

The Nazis

[Emsworth]

This question is an incredibly interesting one. The answer, I think, depends on whether one draws a distinction between action and inaction. The issue is often cast in the following terms: is doing harm just as immoral as letting harm occur? But I would like to cast the issue in a somewhat different manner: Is doing good just as moral as letting good occur? Instinctively, most people would respond in the negative. It seems ridiculous to suggest that, just because I do not stop someone else from giving charity, I have some sort of share in the virtuous act. By analogy, I would conclude that just because someone fails to step in to stop a killing, it does not follow that he is morally culpable in that killing. I recognize that this is simply my personal opinion, but I feel that it is consistent with the instinctive response of most people to the action-inaction issue.

Specifically, then, with respect to the subject of this thread, the perpetrators of the Holocaust were morally responsible for it, to a much greater extent than those who stood by and allowed it to happen. I would prefer not to say that "the Nazis" are responsible; there were several non-Nazis who actively facilitated the genocide. On the other hand, I don't think that responsibility for the Holocaust lies at the doorstep of all of Germany.

[Beet]

Interesting question- here is another. Could the holocaust have happened without World War II? It's worth nothing that 8 million Germans who were innocent in the eyes of Nazi German society were killed in the war- a greater toll than the holocaust. War just sets societies against each other with such totality that all notions of morality seem lost.

After all, what is the most immoral act one can commit in peacetime? Murder. And what is war? Organized, mass killing, sanctioned and urged on by every respectable element of society.

In the eyes of Nazi Germany, the Allies murdered 8 million innocent Germans, military and civilian alike; but even the military casualties were innocent in the eyes of their society. To reject this notion, a German would have to reject their government and society in a time of war, turning against the armed forces of their own nation.

This is the most offensive possible position any individual can take against any society. It means a complete break between the individual and the bonds of public existence. In the eyes of your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, you become a 'terrorist'; a 'traitor'; worthy of nothing. You are even more despicable than the enemy. Is any person here really so naively optimistic about human nature that they believe the average person of any nationality would actually choose such an existence because it was morally right? It takes remarkable people. Certainly a lot more hotheads will say 'if I had been a German then I would have tried to do something' than who would actually do it.

Morally, it is remarkable how the entire universe of morality hinges on a single linchpin. In war, morality is trivial; banal, compared to the total forces of social pressure. The war certainly did not justify the holocaust, but it certainly went along way toward cheapening the value of human life.

[DownWithTheLeft]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

what

[Eraserhead]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

what

Hmm... sounds like the comment of someone into Starkism.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

what

Hmm... sounds like the comment of someone into Starkism.

Yes it does.

[Robespierre's Jaw]

I would blame the 11,737,000 million people that voted for the National Socialist German Workers Party in November 1932 Reichstag Election.

Those people didn't know of course, that Hitler was going to kill some 520,000 people as soon as he was in power. All the German voters, in particular those Nazi voters knew that Hitler hated the Jews and wanted the German public to follow suit, by forcing them out of the country.

Those 11,737,000 people are responsible for the deaths of more than approximently 6.2 million Jews. If they didn't decide to vote for the Nazi Party on Election Day, the lives of 6.2 million Jews could have been saved, thanks to an electoral ballot.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

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.

[Gabu]

I would blame the 11,737,000 million people that voted for the National Socialist German Workers Party in November 1932 Reichstag Election.

Those people didn't know of course, that Hitler was going to kill some 520,000 people as soon as he was in power. All the German voters, in particular those Nazi voters knew that Hitler hated the Jews and wanted the German public to follow suit, by forcing them out of the country.

Those 11,737,000 people are responsible for the deaths of more than approximently 6.2 million Jews. If they didn't decide to vote for the Nazi Party on Election Day, the lives of 6.2 million Jews could have been saved, thanks to an electoral ballot.

And were it not for Hitler's life, he might not have becomes the man he had.  Or maybe you could blame those who had put Germany in the situation it was in that caused those Germans to vote for Hitler.  Everything happened for a reason, it's not as if people were just like "yeah, Hitler's gonna kill a few million Jews, whatev".  I think people are rather quick to judge the German people at the time without truly understanding why Hitler was able to get elected in the first place.

[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. 

[NDN]

Pretty much everyone, unfortunately. The Holocaust didn't just happen because of the Nazis, or the Germans, or even the Social Conditions of the time. It happened because the West (and American Elites in particular) not only ignored it, but in many cases were directly complicit in it.

[DownWithTheLeft]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

what

Hmm... sounds like the comment of someone into Starkism.

I thought the "DUH" at the end implied the sarcasm enough

[Eraserhead]

It was obviously an internal Jewish conspiracy DUH

what

Hmm... sounds like the comment of someone into Starkism.

I thought the "DUH" at the end implied the sarcasm enough

My comment was also meant to be sarcastic young down.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Germany's population as a whole was to blame for it. The anti-semitic and anti-slavic memes were that widely spread in the population so even if we got lucky and had a teetering, semi-stable republican government survive after 1933 we probably would have seen pogroms in Germany plus jews fleeing violence.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

The Nazis.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The Nazis.

You seem to forget all the non-party members who gassed people.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

The Nazis.

You seem to forget all the non-party members who gassed people.

OK - well the poll is kinda stupid in that it doesn't provide for any mid-ground.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Germans is the middle ground. Also what middle ground for you? Everyone knows you voted option 3.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Germans is the middle ground. Also what middle ground for you? Everyone knows you voted option 3.

I voted option 2 - do you want a Print Screen picture to prove it?

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Given how you can photoshop it don't bother.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Given how you can photoshop it don't bother.

you can't photoshop something to bold this quickly:

[Michael Z]

One thing that people tend to misunderstand about the Holocaust is that it was the culmination of CENTURIES of anti-Semitism, not just in Germany but in Europe as a whole. It wasn't just a question of people voting for Hitler and suddenly everyone was anti-Semitic, but that prejudice (at least) or hatred (at worst) against Jews was pretty much engrained in mainstream Western culture for a long time beforehand.

Anyway... I don't think anyone in 1933 expected things to reach the stage they did. People probably thought the 1935 Nuremberg Laws (which stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and countless civil rights) were as bad as it could get. I mean, what could possibly happen next? The idea that the Nazis would commit mass genocide was possibly beyond most people's capacity of thought.

Of course, with regards to Hitler's other plans (such as literally wiping Russia off the map), that's an entirely different story, because he had already outlined his imperialistic plans in Mein Kampf, a book that was a bestseller even before his ascent to power and so read by millions of people (though I also suspect that, once the Nazis were in power and it was pretty much compulsory to own a copy of Mein Kampf, a lot of people bought it because they felt they had to and let it collect dust on the shelves without ever reading a word of it). So, at least in that regard, people must've realised that this guy was up to something really quite unpleasant.

[Eraserhead]

Ratzinger did it.

[Хahar 🤔]

Option 3. Of course the Jewks made it all up!