Session 7(b): Scholarship, Film, Genocide and the Holocaust

Session 7b: Scholarship, Film, Genocide and the Holocaust
Chair: Ursula Scheidegger

The Search for Genocide Scholarship in Social Work
Nikola Alenkin
Glendale, California, USA

It is undeniable that Genocide is the cruellest form of destruction that man places upon man. In the twentieth century alone, Genocide has been responsible for the deaths of an estimated 174 million people, or four times the amount killed in all the wars or revolutions during that same time period (Rummel, 1997). The failures of the international community to respond time and time again are mirrored by the lack of academic discourse and even more so public debate and discussion about Genocide. The academic discourse that does occur among social and political scientists often aims at finding preventative models for genocide (Cushman,2003; Kuper, 1985) or debate about the many definitions of Genocide itself(Alvarez,2001; Charny,1984). This academic work has clearly not resulted in a safer world, one in which Genocide is absent in. One only needs to look at the current situations in the Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo to be reminded of this. In fact, the academic community with few exceptions has failed to ignite public discourse about Genocide and has done even less in educating professionals as to their respective responsibilities of responding to Genocide apart from academic study. What is clear is that the professional community (which includes academia and its institutions) must be ready to stand for and develop a framework to address Genocide at its core, one which includes robust research, inclusion of citizenry participation, and a call for accountability at all levels of governmental institutions. In recent years there has been a surge of interest in genocide studies, which shows the professional communities renewed interest in the field. My work’s central task is to fill this important analytical and participatory gap by professionals and citizens alike by: 1) addressing the persistent lack of response on the part of professional organizations (where international entities have already failed to respond), 2) highlighting the role of professional social worker scholarship in response to genocide.

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The devastating results of Hitler’s campaign to produce a pure Germanic state are well documented.  Less well documented, is his use, or abuse, of the media in obtaining this goal.  As part of his vision he ordered Gleichschaltung; the ‘total assimilation within the state of all political, economic and cultural activities’ (Welch, 1985:10). This he believed could only be achieved through taking complete control of the media, for Hitler realised that film, and other forms of media, were an essential tool in propagating his ideologies to the German people and in particular the German youth.  For as Manvell and Fraeknel (1971) point out, ‘a regime as ruthless as the Nazis could not have existed without the constant application of propaganda in the minds of the people’ (Manvell & Fraeknel. 1971: 65).
This paper will examine Hitler’s use of propaganda in films as a means of influencing the minds of the German people between the periods of 1933 to 1945.  The paper will primarily focus on Hitler’s theories on propaganda and how he implemented them into the everyday lives of the German people through film. By a close examination of several films produced during this period the paper will illustrate how Hitler and his National Socialist Party successfully used film to corrupt the minds of the German people to their way of thinking thus allowing the party to implement their ideologies with devastating consequences.

The Mental Construct of Nazi Germany: Purification or Evil?
Philip Snyder
Claremont Mckenna College, USA

The concept of extraordinary evil has only recently begun to be examined under a psychological lens. In Becoming Evil, James Waller employed a novel psychological perspective to examine the concept of extraordinary evil. Dr. Waller’s theory consisted of four main pillars that collectively enable an individual to participate in extraordinary evil. Waller’s psychological perspective will be contrasted with other philosophical and historical perspectives of extraordinary evil, including Hannah Arendt’s conclusions vis-à-vis Adolf Eichmann.
These varying perspectives will then be employed to investigate the association between evil and the moral collapse of professional ethics in the Third Reich. If three groups of professionals – doctors, lawyers, and military officers – adhered to their respective professional code of ethics – the effects of the Holocaust would have been severely curtailed. I will examine the belief that they were purifying the Third Reich and the dissonance needed to maintain such a notion.