Introductory description

The module is one of a number of 15-CAT final-year modules available to final-year students studying German (either singly or in combination with a range of other subjects) and will expand student choice. It complements, but does not necessitate prior knowledge of, work covered under GE217 'Film in the Weimar Republic and under National Socialism' and complements, but is not a prerequisite for, GE 424 ‘Reflections of National Socialism in Post-war German Writing’ and GE 431 ‘German Memories of WWII - From Perpetration to Suffering’.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The lectures will focus on providing students with necessary background knowledge; the seminars will focus on conflicting interpretations of different aspects of the Holocaust. The lecture format will be broken up frequently for group work on primary documents in German (see below under section 11) which will also inform the seminar discussion.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2. Lecture: Antisemitism in Germany before 1933, the end of Weimar and the rise of National Socialism
Seminar: Racial theory and its relation to antisemitism
Week 3. Lecture: Gradual exclusion of Jews from civil rights and civil life
Seminar: Everyday life and sources of consent
Week 4. Lecture: NS population policy and Euthanasia
Seminar: The perpetrators: ‘Ordinary men’ or ‘Hitler’s willing
executioners’? (Part I)
Week 5. Lecture: ‘War of extermination’ in the East
Seminar: The perpetrators: ‘Ordinary men’ or ‘Hitler’s willing
executioners’? (Part II)
Week 6. Reading week
Week 7. Lecture: Wannsee conference; SS and other main agents
Seminar: Hitler’s role (Part I): ‘Intentionalism’
Week 8. Lecture: The system of the camps; the example Neuengamme: life and death in an ‘Arbeitslager’; profit and extermination.
Seminar: Hitler’s role (Part II): ‘Structuralism/Functionalism’
Week 9. Lecture: Film (extracts from Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah)
Seminar: Levels of responsibility (discussion of issues raised by the film)
Week 10. Lecture: Genocide: the example Auschwitz. The aftermath.
Seminar: National Socialism - ‘relapse into barbarity’ or ‘the dark side of

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• demonstrate a broad understanding of the key factors and historical developments leading up to the Holocaust.
• critically analyse and contextualise a range of documents from the period.
• critically engage with historical approaches to different aspects of National Socialism and the Holocaust.
• Ability to conduct independent research using library, bibliographic resources and ICT skills
• Ability to engage critically with a variety of historical theories and interpretations
• Command of German

Indicative reading list

Material for group work: Historical documents (in German), such as extracts from speeches, propaganda material, laws and regulations, eyewitness reports, photographs and film.

Core reading: chapters from the following works

Detlev Peukert, Volksgenossen und Gemeinschaftsfremde: Anpassung, Ausmerze und Aufbegehren unter dem Nationalsozialismus (1982)
Eberhard Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung: Entwurf einer Herrschaft (1981)
Martin Broszat: “Hitler und die Genesis der ‘Endlösung’”, in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, no. 4 (Oct. 1977)
Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State (1991)
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (1992)
Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s willing executioners (1996)
Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (1989)

Films:
Claude Lanzmann: Shoah (1985)
Ruth Beckermann: Jenseits des Krieges (1996)
Leni Riefenstahl: Triumph des Willens

Selected background reading: Extracts from
Jean Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne (1966)
Wolfgang Benz, Der Holocaust (2004)
David Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution: public opinion under Nazism (1992)
Omer Bartov (ed.), Holocaust : origins, implementation, aftermath (2000)
Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (2001)
Ulrich Herbert (ed.) Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939-45: Neue Forschungen und Kontroversen (1998)
Michael Wildt, “Die Herstellung der Volksgemeinschaft”, in: MW,
Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung (2007)
Harald Welzer, Täter. Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenmörder
werden (2005)
Pascale Bos, “Women and the Holocaust: Analyzing Gender
Difference”, in: E. R. Baer & M Goldenberg (eds.), Experience
and Expression. Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (2003)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of German culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of the Holocaust will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.