The Holocaust/Related Articles
From Citizendium

- See also changes related to The Holocaust, or pages that link to The Holocaust or to this page or whose text contains "The Holocaust".
Parent topics
- Antisemitism [r]: In basic usage, hostility against, or persecution of, Jews, rather than ethnically Semitic people in general, or non-Semitic Jews [e]
- Genocide [r]: The deliberate killing or other destruction of a large group, membership in which is a broad criterion such as ethnicity or religion rather than individual acts [e]
- Nazi race and biological ideology [r]: The policies of Nazi Germany, based on the views of Adolf Hitler, which emphasized encouraging the breeding of what he considered to be a superior race and preventing the breeding, or actively killing, what he considered subhuman [e]
- Adolf Hitler [r]: (1889–1945) Politician in Germany; became 1921 Nazi Party leader, 1933 Reichskanzler (Chancellor), then 1934 as der Führer dictator before and during World War II. [e]
Subtopics
Policy
- Nuremberg Laws [r]: Nazi Germany's principal racial legislation were called the Nuremberg Laws [e]
- Wannsee Conference [r]: Nazi meeting in January 1942 to plan the killing of 11 million Jews of Europe, now known as the Holocaust. [e]
General organizations and leaders
- Chancellery of the Fuehrer [r]: Personal administrative secretariat of Adolf Hitler as Fuehrer; headed by Philip Bouhler; directed some secret projects such as the Nazi euthanasia program [e]
- Philip Bouhler [r]: (1899-1945) Business manager of early Nazi Party; Head of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler's personal office; key manager of the Nazi euthanasia program; committed suicide at war's end [e]
- Chancellery of the Nazi Party [r]: Top-level secretariat of the Nazi Party; headed by Philip Bouhler [e]
- Martin Bormann [r]: German Nazi administrator, little-known to the public but became immensely powerful as the head of Adolf Hitler's personal office, the Chancellery of the Nazi Party, essentially controlling access to him. [e]
- Chancellery of the Reich [r]: State, not Nazi Party, secretariat for Nazi Germany and the Reich Cabinet headed by Hans Lammers; may also refer to the office building for the Chancelleries [e]
- Reich Minister for the East and Occupied Territories [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Alfred Rosenberg [r]: Early Nazi Party member and philopsopher, later Minister for the occupied territories on the Eastern Front; tried and executed by the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) [e]
SS
- WVHA [r]: The economic and administrative organization of Nazi Germany's SS, whose responsibilities included the actual operation of concentration camps [e]
- Oswald Pohl [r]: SS-Obergruppenfuehrer, Waffen SS; Head of the SS WVHA; and its Amtsgruppe W; executed by verdict of the Pohl Case (NMT) [e]
- Inspector of Concentration Camps [r]: Amt (Office) "D" of the WVHA, with direct responsibility for the Nazi concentration camps, although some independent action was taken through the chain of command of RSHA personnel, primarily Gestapo, assigned to the camps [e]
- RSHA [r]: Nazi Germany's Reich Main Security Organization, a division of the SS, first headed by Reinhard Heydrich and then Ernst Kaltenbrunner; included the Gestapo and SD [e]
- Reinhard Heydrich [r]: First commander of the RSHA of the SS, then Nazi Protector of Bohemia and Moravia until his assassination [e]
- Ernst Kaltenbrunner [r]: Second commander of the Reich Main Security Administration (RSHA) of the SS of Nazi Germany; executed for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) [e]
- RuSHA [r]: Main Race and Settlement Office (Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt), part of the RSHA of the SS; responsible both for development of implementation policy for Nazi race and biological ideology and examining individuals to determine their Nazi racial classification; the focus of the RuSHA Case of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which also judged three related organizations [e]
- Gestapo [r]: The secret political police force of Nazi Germany, a state rather than party organization, reporting both to the SS (Party) and Ministry of the Interior (State) [e]
- SD [r]: Add brief definition or description
Facilities and field units
- Nazi euthanasia program [r]: A secret program of Nazi Germany, in which hundreds of thousands of persons were killed, not for medical reasons but because they were deemed, by Nazi ideology, "life unworthy of life" [e]
- Einsatzgruppe [r]: Plural is Einsatzgruppen; Nazi mobile security, and then killing units, which accompanied Army units advancing into Austria, Poland and Russia; units on Russian Front carried out mass murder in The Holocaust prior to the construction of extermination camps [e]
- Concentration camp [r]: A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes unwanted ethnic groups are detained and confined under extremely harsh conditions (including the murder of the detainees as during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany). [e]
- Extermination camp [r]: Totenlager A subset of six Nazi concentration camps in The Holocaust, designed principally for killing ideological and racial undesirables as part of the Final Solution [e]
Personnel
Top leadership
- Schutzstaffel [r]: A Nazi German organization, the "SS". technically part of the National Socialist German Workers' Party but in many respects a "state within a state", its functions intermingled with government offices in a manner characteristic of Adolf Hitler's desire to keep final control. While it is best known for its security and genocidal operations, it also had major economic and regular military roles, a far growth from its original role as Hitler's personal bodyguard [e]
- Heinrich Himmler [r]: German Nazi leader, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) party elite; committed suicide after being captured at the end of World War II [e]
RSHA
- Reinhard Heydrich [r]: First commander of the RSHA of the SS, then Nazi Protector of Bohemia and Moravia until his assassination [e]
- Ernst Kaltenbrunner [r]: Second commander of the Reich Main Security Administration (RSHA) of the SS of Nazi Germany; executed for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) [e]
Gestapo
- Adolf Eichmann [r]: A key leader in the planning and operation of the Holocaust, who escaped Germany but was subsequently apprehended by Israeli agents in Argentina, and tried and executed by an Israeli court [e]
Einstatzgruppen
- Bruno Streckenbach [r]: SS-Gruppenfuehrer; SIPO chief in Krakow 1940; Commander of Einsatzgruppe I in Poland; trainer of Soviet Einsatzgruppe and staff to Reinhard Heydrich; Waffen SS Latvian division commander [e] Polish Einsatzgruppe I, attached to 14th Army
- Emanuel Schaefer [r]: Commander of Einsatzgruppe II in Poland [e] 10th Army
- Hans Fischer [r]: Commander of Einsatzgruppe III in Poland [e] 8th Army
- Lothar Beutel [r]: Commander of Einsatzgruppe IV in Poland [e] 3rd Army
- Ernst Damzog [r]: Commander of Einsatzgruppe V in Poland [e] 4th Army
- Erich Naumann [r]: SS-Brigadefuehrer; member of the SD; Commanding Officer of Einsatzgruppe VI in Poland and B in Russia [e] Posen area
- Udo von Woyrsch [r]: Commander of Einsatzgruppe z.B.v (Special Purpose) in Poland [e] Polish Einsatzgruppe z.B.v
- Paul Blobel [r]: SS-Standartenfuehrer in the SD; Commanding Officer of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, later headed Aktion 1005 (1942-1944) to destroy evidence in mass graves in the Soviet Union; hanged by verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) [e]
- Otto Ohlendorf [r]: SS-Gruppenfuehrer; head of domestic intelligence (Amt III) in the SD; Commanding Officer of Einsatzgruppe D; executed by verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) trial in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals [e]
- Franz Walter Stahlecker [r]: (1900-1942) Nazi police and intelligence officer; SS-Brigadefuehrer; SD officer; HSSPF of Bohemia and Moravia, then Norway; commanded Einsatzgruppe A; killed in action while HSSPF Ostland [e] Army Group North
- Artur Nebe [r]: German police officer before the Nazis, first sympathetic then part of the resistance; headed KRIPO and then an Einsatzgruppe; executed for anti-Nazi activities [e] Army Group Centre
- Otto Rasch [r]: Formally referred to as "Dr. Dr." with two doctorates; SS-Brigadefuehrer; member of the SD and Gestapo Commanding Officer of Einsatzgruppe C; removed from the Einsatzgruppen Case trial for medical reasons and died 1 November 1948 [e]
WVHA
- Oswald Pohl [r]: SS-Obergruppenfuehrer, Waffen SS; Head of the SS WVHA; and its Amtsgruppe W; executed by verdict of the Pohl Case (NMT) [e]
HSSPF
- Odilo Globocnik [r]: "Globus" (1904-1945) Austrian Nazi; Gauleiter of Wien (1938 - 1939); HSSPF Lublin 1939-1945, headed Aktion Reinhard; committed suicide [e]
- Erich von Bach-Zelewski [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Jurgen Stroop [r]: Add brief definition or description
Medical
- Ernst Grawitz [r]: SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and Chief Medical Officer of the SS; suggested the use of gas chambers for The Holocaust and supervised Nazi medical experiments; committed suicide at the war's end [e]
Historians
- Hannah Arendt [r]: (1906–1975) Political philosopher, political scientist, and commentator; a German ancestry to the U.S.; major academic works include The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, On Revolution and The Life of the Mind; well known for book Eichmann in Jerusalem containing the phrase "the banality of evil" [e]
- Yehuda Bauer [r]: (1926-) Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem [e]
- Alan Bullock [r]: (1914-2004) British academic and government historian noted for his work on Adolf Hitler; vice-chancellor of Oxford University [e]
- Christopher Browning [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Lucy Dawidowicz [r]: (1915-1990) American historian specializing in modern Jewish history, especially the Holocaust [e]
- Ian Kershaw [r]: (1943-) Noted biographer of Adolf Hitler and retired Professor of History at the University of Sheffield [e]
- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Ron Rosenbaum [r]: Add brief definition or description
Legal
- International Control Commission [r]: Add brief definition or description
- International Military Tribunal (Nurremberg) [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Nuremberg Military Tribunals [r]: A set of twelve trials of officials of Nazi Germany, conducted by the United States in its zone of occupation of Germany, following the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) [e]