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Historiographic Essay [In this assignment you are asked to review the historiographical literature on what Holocaust historians call the “intentionalist-functionalist debate

The historiographical essay should be eight pages long. -required to address at least five different original scholarly works in the essay. At least one of the works should be a monograph. (Monographs are books written by a single author with an overarching argument that is addressed throughout the work.) -All other works may be articles from scholarly journals or book chapters. Each of the works addressed in the essay must have an overarching argument or interpretation. As such, sources that simply state what happened (e.g. encyclopedia entries, review articles, or textbooks) can be used, but do not count as one of the required five original scholarly works. -paper has to include a header, title (no title page is needed), footnotes (Chicago Style), and a bibliography. paper should be 8 pages long (notes and bibliography do not count against the page limit), double spaced with standard margins, using Times New Roman 12-point font. Pages must be numbered.

Historiographic Essay (Instructions)
Historians refer to the scholarship (secondary sources) written about a particular event, process, or
historical question as historiography. In other words, historiography can also be described as “the history
of history.” What this means in practice is an exploration of a specific topic, and how historians have
explained events or people over time, i.e. how their explanations have changed due to their own
worldview and/or ideological bent, due to re-interpretation of previously-viewed sources, due to the
availability of new sources, previously unexplored, and/or due to the application of different questions
and/or methodologies to sources. Revision of prior interpretations of the past is an implicit and important
element of historiography.
So what distinguishes a historiographical essay from a regular research paper?you are asked to move
from the mastery of facts and analysis of primary sources encouraged by lower-level courses to a richer
and deeper understanding of how history is written and the fact that events and ideas are open to
interpretation. When you study ‘historiography’ you do not study the events or persons of the past directly,
but critically examine the changing interpretations of the event or person in the scholarly works of
individual historians. Thus, a historiographical essay is one which critically summarizes and analyzes the
arguments and interpretations of scholars on a given topic, historical period, or event. It may also critique
the works of a specific historian or a specific “school” of historio- graphy. A traditional “content” research
paper focuses on an actual historical event, process, or question.
To this day, scholars have written millions of words about the Holocaust. Historians who specialize in this
field of re- search have focused on many questions or issues and used different approaches and theories
to address these questions. This leads to multiple explanations, which at times, are diametrically opposed
to each other and sometimes resulted in debates and even heated arguments between historians. In this
assignment you are asked to review the historiographical literature on what Holocaust historians call the
“ intentionalist-functionalist debate .”
Writing Guide
In this assignment, you are expected to analyze the ways in which the nature of political power, the extent
of planning, the organization of the Nazi regime and the role Hitler played in decision-making is treated by
a number of historians in order to understand and evaluate their unique interpretations of Nazism and its
leader. There is no single formula for organizing a historiographic essay, but this genre of writing is
usually problem centered (unlike a book review, which is centered on a single publication).In addition to
pointing out areas of agreement and disagreement in the work on a given subject, a good historical essay
should discuss the reason for these differences and their implications for the understanding of the subject.
Like all interpretive and argumentative essays, a historiographical essay should have an introduction
defining its subject and offering a preview of the following argument, and it should end with a conclusion
in which you look back over what you have said, summarize your most important findings, and leave the
reader with a significant thought to carry away from the piece, and/or anticipate future developments of
the research. The introduction and conclusion should be separate paragraphs or sequences of paragraphs;
if you combine them with paragraphs that are really part of the body of your paper, you have
probably not devoted enough time and effort to them.
In between, there are several different ways to organize your material. The best approach depends on the
nature of the readings themselves. For this assignment, you will make use of the
“historiographical-evolution” approach of viewpoints over time. It is recommended to begin by discussing
a fundamental book that set forth important theses on aThis usually works best if you are comparing a
series of more or less comparable secondary works that deal with closely related questions and that show
a clear evolution historical topic and then looking at subsequent publications that challenged those
theses, perhaps substituting a new general interpretation that was subsequently revised in its turn. It will
be your job as historiographical analyst to show how the con- versation among historians proceeded and
what ending point is finally reached which means you will refer to specific events themselves only in
relation to an author’s interpretation of those events. At first glance, a historiographical essay may look
like a series of separate book reviews strung together. Try not to think of your assignment in these ways,
however. The success of a historiographical essay depends on showing how the materials you are
discussing relate to each other, rather than just evaluating each one on its individual merits. A particularly
strong historiographical essay brings the works together in an integrated analysis that not only draws on
different books/articles but also explains how the works agree and disagree with each other. You want to
avoid the temptation to simply discuss one work, then the next, and then another, with little explanation or
analysis of how they fit together. In short, the body of your historiographic review essay should have three
components: 1) identification of the arguments of each author; 2) a comparison of the arguments that
identifies where they agree or disagree, or how they address each other; and 3) an evaluation of the
strengths and weakness of each argument. In other words, a historiographical (review) essay offers both
an overview of the field for any given topic and an evaluation of it.
Annotated Bibliography
(you can use this for reference)
For this essay, I would like to focus on the question of how did Nazi Germany justify its actions
towards the persecution of the Jews, as well as, at what point did the Nazis fully pursue the
extermination of the Jewish race. With this question in mind, I want to dive deeper into the
intentionalist-functionalist debate and compare both viewpoints to see which side supports my
thesis.
Colie, Rosalie L. “ORGANIZING THE FINAL SOLUTION: PATTERNS OF
REACTION.” The Centennial Review 11, no. 3 (1967): 312-35. Accessed April 23, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/23738020 .
Rosalie L. Colie argues in this journal that in some instances, the Holocaust has been somewhat
downplayed by other journalists due to the fact that it is sometimes referred to as the Eichmshean
case. In this essay, she goes n depth about the patterns of reactions that have been organized to
deal with this particular example of complete human annihilation and what those patterns
indicate about our manner of living and thinking. Essentialy she is describing how people have
reacted to the holocaust over the years.
Bessel, Richard. “Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or
Whatever Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism?” German Studies Review 26, no.
1 (2003): 15-20. Accessed April 23, 2020. doi:10.2307/1432899.
Author , Richard Blessed focuses on how the argument of functionalism vs intentionalism has
become more blurred over the years and that what once was one of the most debated topics
regarding the final solution and nazi Germany has slowly dwindled out of the spotlight. this
transition is partly due to new archives being found and more in-depth research being done
regarding the topic. He also states that maybe we have become so fixated on the terms
functionalist and intentionalists that historians lost sight of what really needed to be debated
which is morality and the moral obligations of historians.
Reviewed by, Nechama Tec. 1989. “How Central was Anti-Semitism to Nazism? WHY DID
THE HEAVENS NOT DARKEN?: The Final Solution in History by Arno J. Mayer
(Pantheon Books: 468 Pp.; 0-397-57154-1): [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997
Fulltext) , Feb 19, 6.
This article gives an overview of the debate between intentionalists and functionalists.
Intentionalists argue that the final solution was planned before WW2 began, therefore, implying
that the murder and persecution of Jews known as the final solution was always part of the nazi
party’s ideals. The opposing side (functionalists) argue that the final solution actually evolved
during the war and was not particularly planned from the begging but rather implemented later
on. They also argue that Hitler was the main reason for the holocaust and that if he was not in
charge then it most likely would not have happened.
Huener, Jonathan. 2002. “Essays on Hitler’s Europe.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 44 (1)
(Mar): 146-148.
Historian, Istvan Deak, has written a collection of essays specializing in the historiography of
Nazi Germany and particularly the Holocaust. These essays are critical in addressing the
intentionalism vs functionalism debate and offer a variety of perspectives on the topic. His 18
essays are organized into 5 chapters in which Deak introduces some of the controversies
regarding the Holocaust history. Deak emphasizes that the history of the Holocaust is something
that is not easy to understand but rather highly complex and “like any historical phenomenon
should not be subject to facile and categorical judgments.” Deak compared the Germans Final
solution to similar instances in other societies such as Romania’s own final solution.
Beorn, Waitman Wade. 2016. “New Paths, New Directions: Reflections on Forty Years of
Holocaust Studies and the GSA.” German Studies Review 39 (3) (10): 589-599,695.
Author, Wade Waitman, Focuses on the argument regarding how much of the physical
extermination of the Jews was planned from the begging. The terms intentionalism and
functionalism describe opposing viewpoints on this topic with one (intentionalism) claiming that
The Final Solution was a policy that was implemented from the start of the Third Reich and
essentially was a defining ideal of the Nazi party. On the other hand, functionalism bases itself
on the fact that the persistent murder of Jews and the fruition of concentration camps was
something that developed through the rule of the Third Reich and it was not necessarily planned
from the beginning. “While not discounting antisemitism, functionalists argued that situational
factors contributed to the “Final Solution” at least as much. They failed to find a smoking gun in
Hitler’s earlier texts as intentionalists did” (Beorn).