Responsibility for the Holocaust

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Responsibility for the Holocaust has been the subject of historical debate concerning the development and origins of the Holocaust across Europe. While the responsibility for the Holocaust rests largely on Hitler and the Nazi Party's leadership, operations to persecute Jews, Poles, Romani people, homosexuals and others were also perpetrated by the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Wehrmacht, and ordinary German citizens, as well as by collaborationist members of various European governments, including soldiers and civilians. A host of factors contributed to the environment in which atrocities were committed across the continent, ranging from general racism (including antisemitism), religious hatred, blind obedience, apathy, political opportunism, coercion, profiteering, and xenophobia. In academic circles, scholarship about the Holocaust's cause and intensification became known as the functionalism–intentionalism debate. Intentionalists such as Lucy Dawidowicz argue that Adolf Hitler planned the...

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