From “Final Solution” to “Holocaust”: Autobiographical Reflections

doi:10.1017/9781108913614.006

3 - From “Final Solution” to “Holocaust”: Autobiographical Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025

Jane Caplan

Edited by

Mark Roseman and

Dan Stone

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Mark Roseman: Affiliation:
Indiana University
Dan Stone: Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London

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Summary

This semi-autobiographical essay offers the perspective from the 1970s to the present of a leading historian of Nazi Germany. It shows how a series of paradigms in one way or another obscured the Holocaust, while at the same time underling the importance of the scholarship on the Final Solution that took off in the 1960s. A particular focus of the essay is the debates around fascism and the difficulty of acknowledging the centrality of racism within the fascist model.

Keywords

Autobiography German historiography final solution blindness to the Holocaust fascism Marxism intentionalism functionalism

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 62 - 73

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913614.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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References

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