The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

individual offenders, 10 who used his granted freedom within the system, not
least to satisfy his own interests at the expense of whole groups of population,
what further radicalized the apparatus, was Adolf Eichmann. 11
Eichmann's assessment in the literature
The assessment of Eichmann and his role in the Nazi apparatus in the
literature has to be understood in the context of the discourse of conflicting
interpretations 12 of the development of Nazi genocide policy.
10 If this work is primarily about the person of Adolf Eichmann, it must no be forgotten, that
he didn’t work all alone. The careers of the so-called „Eichmann-Männer” („Eichmann-Men”), a
term from Raul HILBERG, which initially referred to the three commanders of the camp in
Theresienstadt, Dr. Siegfried Seidl, Anton Burger und Karl Rahm are treated in the books listed
below, especially at Raul HILBERG and Hans SAFRIAN. Since I will not explain any further
details about Eichmann’s Men, in trying to keep this work as short as possible, they should be
briefly mentioned here: Franz Novak born 1913 in Wolfsberg in the Austrian province of
Carinthia; Alois Brunner,1912 in Rohrbrunn in Burgenland; Anton Burger,1911 in Neunkirchen
in Lower Austria; Karl Rahm, 1907 in Klosterneuburg near Vienna; Franz Stuschka, 1910 in
Liesing near Vienna; Herbert Gerbing, 1914 in Mödling near Vienna; Anton Zita, 1909 in
Göllersdorf; Josef Weiszl, 1912 in Felsöderna; Richard Hartenberger, 1911 in Vienna; Ernst
Girzick, 1911 in Vienna; Ferdinand Daurach, 1912 in Vienna; Ernst Brückler, 1912 in Vienna;
Alfred Slawik, 1913 in Vienna; Anton Brunner, 1898 in Bregana. LOZOWICK describes this
group of men in this way: „Although their social backgrounds and education varied, they were
all young, male, Christian, and nationalist-minded Germans; they had all voluntarily joined the
SS.” LOZOWICK Yaacon: Hitler’s Bureaucrats. The Nazi security police and the banality of
evil. Leicester, 2002. 7.
11 SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 2010. 1 -13.
12 Such an attempt of interpretation, called „intentionalistic” in literature, assumes, says
Eberhard Jäckel, a linear implementation of a „world view”. Also the English historian Gerald
Fleming makes in his work „Hitler and the Final Solution” clear, that it is a straight way from
the anti-Semitic statements of the young Adolf Hitler. Related to Hitler’s remark to his childhood
friend August Kubizek: „that does not belong here in Linz”, as the two passed the small
synagogue in the Bethlehemstraße in Linz. In: FLEMING, Gerald: It Is the Fuehrer’s Wish.
Extract reprinted from Fleming’s „Hitler and the Final Solution”. In: NIEWYK, Donald L., ed.
The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 2 nd ed. Boston, 1997. 12-13. Read
in: SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 9. Up to the so-called „Final Solution of the Jewish
Question” followers of this attempts of interpretation, called „Intentionalists” thus trying to draw
a direct line between the anti-Semitic ideology of Hitler, his plans and orders and the mass
murders. In contrast followers of the so-called „structuralistic” or also „functionalistic” attempt
of interpretation deny such a „master plan of evil”, that led to the „Final Solution”. So
SCHLEUNES, Karl A. speaks in his researches about a „tortuous road to Auschwitz”. Also
historians like BROSZAT, Martin and MOMMSEN, Hans refer to a „cumulative radicalization”
of the Nazi actions against humanity. Simultaneously they relativize the importance of a clear
and unequivocal command of Hitler for the carrying out of the mass murders. In that case the
Nazi-genocide-policy is no direct implementation of an ideology, but had to be understood as a
complex branching and Step-by-step aggravatation of individual motives, as well as the
interaction and bundling of various moments. SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men 9-11. A third
attempt of interpretation of the genocides, which is for example made by STRAUSS, Herbert A.,
speaks about the fundamental incomprehensibility of the „Holocaust”. DAN, Diner calls,
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