|
Why do historians and the general public agree that the Holocaust was an extraordinary and horrific event, yet write about the First World War as if it was a "normal" element of the historical process? In actuality, the Holocaust and the First World War had this in common: Human beings slaughtered mass-numbers of human beings in the name of preserving the nation-state (Hitler: "We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany, we have performed the greatest deed in the world).
The First World War war actually produced far more fatalities than the Holocaust. The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from around 15 to 22 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel.
Calling one event "war" and the other event "the Holocaust" does not erase reality: the nation-state destroyed massive numbers of human beings with nothing of value accomplished. Do we have the courage to call a spade-a-spade?
We "normalize" the First World War yet view the Holocaust as an anomalous event. Wouldn't it be more accurate and more parsimonious to view the First World War and the Holocaust as two instances in which nation-states slaughtered millions of human beings?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In Murder in Our Midst, Omer Bartov notes that the Holocaust was the almost “perfect reenactment of the Great War,” with the important correction that “all the perpetrators were on one side and all the victims on the other.” Everything else was there: the barbed wire, the machine guns, the charred bodies, the gas, the uniforms, the military discipline, the barracks."
Hitler generated the Holocaust as a repetition of the First World War.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Click here for information on how to purchase my eBook, Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War
|