A Functionalist View Of the Holocaust essays

A Functionalist View Of the Holocaust essays Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany (1933-45) has gone down in history as one of the most horrific mass-murderers in history. Not only did he cause the bloodiest war ever seen, but his warped racial ideology precipitated the Holocaust, the organized slaughter of over twelve million persons. At the top of his list of inferior groups were the Jews of Europe. Hitler sought to make the Reich Judenrein ( free of Jews), and did so in the most horrific fashion imaginable. There are two schools of thought on the origins of the Holocaust. The first is the intentionalist, the belief that it was the Nazis determined and unwavering attempt to physically destroy European Jews. The other is the functionalist belief, that being that the decision to slaughter the Jews was reached via a twisted road, being a result of forces outside of Germany as well as within. This paper will argue the functionalist view of the Holocaust, discussing different avenues pursued by the Germans to make their land Judenrein, and how the failure of those attempts led the Nazis to their horrific Endlsung ( Final Solution). Many people would be shocked to learn that Adolf Hitler was not always an anti-Semite. In his famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which he wrote in prison in prison after the failed Beer Hall putsch of 1923. In this work, he remarks that The Jew still characterized for me by nothing but religion, and therefore on grounds of human tolerance I maintained my rejection of religious attacks. However, he did at some point, experience a complete about-face in his thinking, at one point discovering the moral stain that Jews put on society. Later in Mein Kampf he asked was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? It is unknown exactly what caused Hitlers attitude of tolerance toward...

Christianity

In regards to the issues of Christianity, Human Nature, and Morality philosophers Fredrich Nietzsche and Thomas Hobbes express radical views that are completely in opposition to one another. Hobbes philosophy is dominated by loyalty to the crown, riddled with references to the Christian scriptures, and centered on a belief that life is nasty, brutish, and short. (Leviathan) Nietzsches philosophy is dominated by the pessimistic views of Arthur Schopenhauer and his belief that the human race is nothing more than a herd. Nietzsche believes that God is inert and thus the enemy of life. (Anti-Nature) Both Hobbes and Nietzsche look at the world in a completely different light. Hobbes was a Christian who defended the bible, while Nietzsche refers to Christianity as being a great curse, one of stupidity in fact. There is nothing we envy less than the moralistic cow and the fat happiness of the good conscience...peace of soul, the Christian desideratum. (Anti-Nature) On the topic of human nature Hobbes thought life to be the war of every man, against every man. (Leviathan) Nietzsche, on the other hand, took a nihilistic approach and declared that human nature is simply a euphemism for inertia, cultural conditioning, and what we are before we make something of ourselves. Hobbes views on morality were strictly biblical, straight out of Exodus. Nietzsche, however, held morality as an impediment to the development of a new and better civilization; after all how could a religion that believes in turning the other cheek proclaim any intelligence? If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out. (Anti-Nature) Nietzsche believed that modern Christian civilization is demented. It is a sickness that must be overcome. Hobbes, however, declared that God, when he speaks to any subject, he ought to be obeyed. (Leviathan) Throughout his life, Nietzsche held the belief...

Freedom of Movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Freedom of Movement - Essay Example As Sergio Carrera (2005) suggests, "the right to move freely represents one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market as well as an essential political element of the package of rights linked to the very status of EU citizenship." So the right to free movement is one of the foundations of the community, but there are "hidden and visible obstacles to the free movements of persons in Europe" (Carrera, 2005) that need to be considered. How many EU citizens has the free movement law enabled The last available statistics are for 1999, when the European Commission calculated that there were 2,700,000 EU Nationals (1.8% of the total workforce) working in a member state other than their own. (European, 2001) While not a massive number proportional to the total population, the migration of the workforce that these people represent are an essential part of the structure of a unified Europe. The whole question of the free movement of people within the EU is in fact part of a much broader question that has yet to be answered or even fully defined. Namely, is Europe heading towards a genuine federal unity or merely a patchwork of relationships between countries that have very close ties but which are still quite clearly separate sovereign states The basic question is, will there be a United States of Europe Until Europeans decide upon how this question needs to be framed, and in what way it will be answered, matters such as the free movement of persons will always be subject to this often unspoken but overwhelming dilemma: what is Europe As Craig and de Burca put it, "despite all the discussion in recent years of a finalite politique, this active, reflexive and constantly changing polity seems unlikely to reach a firm settlement in the near future." (Craig, 2003) This discussion will be divided into two basic sections. First the movement of EU citizens, and second, the movement of non-EU citizens throughout the community. Together with these two sections, the events of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent tightening of security throughout Europe brought about a division between "pre" and "post" 9/11. While the full connotations of the post 9/11 security measures have yet to be fulfilled, it does represent a watershed in law regarding movement. First, movement of EU citizens in the context of the Treaty and subsequent case-law. In 1997 the draft Treaty of Amsterdam was published, and it Article B gave impetus to "the abolition of internal borders between the Member States and the regulation of admission of persons through external borders." (Amsterdam, 1997) While three member states (UK, Ireland and Denmark) opted out of this provision, the European Court of Justice was given jurisdiction to interpret measures that were brought in by the European Parliament, "though with a more limited jurisdiction than in any other field of community law." (Guild, 1998) After the Treaty of Rome and subsequent Treaties that drew European countries into union, the concept of the free Movement of Persons was based upon economic policy. If there was to be free movement of trade then people needed to be included within the equation. As Jeffrey (2004) puts it, "in this context human beings were treated as being simply another economic factor within the new European market: persons were given a right to move freely within that market, but so were investments, professional services, machine tools, and cheeses."