| Abstract | If the perpetrators made no distinctions between their victims, but rather wished to see them as a gray, faceless mass of (sub)humanity, most of the victims were not in a position to distinguish between the various affiliations Of their persecutors. The killers deprived their victims of any specific identity by designating them all as "Jews," a term which meant that they were targeted for extinction. The victims spoke of their persecutors as "Germans," whether they were regular soldiers or SS men, Gestapo agents or civilian administrators, a term which meant that they were all potential murderers. But it is the task of the historian to do away with these generalizing categories which, as the case of the Holocaust so clearly demonstrates, begin by erasing individual identity and thereby create the preconditions for annihilating vast, anonymous masses of human beings. German historians, among them historians of the Wehrmacht, have done a great deal to make finer distinctions between the various categories of Germans involved or not involved in the genocide of the Jews.33 But they have done very little to investigate the victims; rather, they refer to them as the perpetrators did, namely, as "Jews," a term seen as synonymous with "victims." And yet, when writing the history of any historical event, including genocide, as well as the specific case of the German army's involvement in the Holocaust, it is just as important to include the perspective of the victims. On the face of it, a history of the genocide based on the documents of the perpetrators may appear to be more reliable than one using accounts and memoirs by survivors; for while the former cites official documentation found in respectable archives, the latter employs "subjective" evidence that lacks any official sanction.34 But such a history perforce creates a false picture of the event and thereby distorts our understanding. If we sec the victims only through the killers' eyes, we become necessarily complicit in their dehumanization; not only do we learn very little about the victims' experience (which was of little concern to the perpetrators), we also gain only limited knowledge of the perpetrators' own conduct, since we must take their word for it rather than view it also from the perspective of those on the "receiving end." Indeed, it is precisely because the victims' perspective has generally been eschewed by German historians off the Holocaust, just as much as by historians of the Wehrmacht, that an array of misunderstandings and misperceptions has corec into being. For as long as we view the soldiers' actions only through their own eyes, we are bound to perceive their victims merely as the products of the "process" we wish to explain rather than as protagonists of equal importance and relevance to the historical event we claim to be reconstructing.35
(39). The best summaries of the debates between the "functionalists" and the "intentionalists" are in [Christopher R. Browning], Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (New York, 1985), 8-38; idem, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge, 1992), 86-121. On new historiographical trends in reunified Germany, see Ion [Ian Kershaw], The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 3d ed. (London, 1993). Two of the most recent interpretations are GÖtz Aly, "Endlosung": VÖlkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt/Main, 1995); [Ulrich Herbert], "Den Gegner vernichten, ohne ihn zu hassen: Loathing the Jews in the World View of the Intellectual Leadership of the SS in the 1920s and 1930s" (unpublished paper, 1996); idem, "Knappe Formeln erklären den Mord an den Juden nicht: Über die aufklärerische Herausforderung der Geschichte des Holocaust," Frankfurter Rundschau, 25 Jan. 1997. Examples of the paradigmatic works of the older scholars include [Hans Mommsen], "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The `Final Solution of the Jewish Problem' in the Third Reich," in idem, From Weimar to Auschwitz: Essays in German History (Princeton, 1991), 224-53; [Martin Broszat], "[Hitler] and the Genesis of the `Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses," Yad Vashem Studies 13 (1979): 61-98.
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