Nazi Political System

Monday 19th November

First of all apologies for the delay in updating the blog for Monday 19th November. (I don't have a valid reason apart from bad time management - sorry)

We began the lesson with a brief disscusion about a topic that we will discuss (well have already discussed due to this being a week late but oh well), namely the holocaust. The main point we discussed was that of Holocaust Denial and an example was given of a infamous historian, who was jailed in Austria for publishing a book in which he explored the arguements put forward by holocaust deniers.

After touching on this topic only briefly, we moved onto the activity on page 207 of H&H. We then discussed the debate below:

Was Nazi foreign policy intentionalist or structuralist?

Definitions:

• Intentionalist - This is the theory that individuals greatly affect the course of history, such as Stalin, Hitler or Napoleon.
• Structuralist - This is the theory that stresses major factors, such as political or economical, dictate the course of history and that individuals do have an influence, but that they are limited to the factors which affect their era.

Although it is difficult to choose between the two, we came to the conclusion that Hitler's foreign policy was more likely to have been intentionalist than structuralist, but that this definition didn't fit exactly and there was an element of structuralism as well.

The next question that was dealt with was on the topic of the Nazi political system:

How was such an allegedly chaotic sytem so successful?

In answer to this question it was concluded that this system survived for 12 years because the inefficiences were not apparent and in fact in most cases aided in the survival of the system.

• The internal rivalries generated a degree of effectiveness.
• Initially, Germany's rivals were weak - France, Poland and the USSR.
• The USA did not enter the was to begin with.
• Popularity of Hitler's policies made opposition difficult.

Finally, to end the lesson we watched a video entitled:

"Chaos and Consent - The Nazi Rule of Germany"

And we were left with the question:

How appropriate do you consider this title?