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Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1988 3(2):197-208; doi:10.1093/hgs/3.2.197
© 1988 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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HOLOCAUST AND WELTANSCHAUUNG: PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON WHY THEY DID IT*

EMIL L. FACKENHEIM

Jerusalem

This essay broaches the most important and heretofore unanswered question of the Holocaust: ‘Why did they do it?’ Positivist and Idealist theories of history both fail to answer the ‘big’ question and lead to the untenable explanation of insanity. The answer seems to lie in the Nazi Weltanschauung, whose ‘granitelike’ core was the Jews. They lent the Weltanschauung its comprehensive unity and were its cosmic principle. An understanding of the importance of Weltanschauung in modern German history and philosophy is necessary to understanding the victory of the Nazi Weltanschauung in Germany.

*Also to be presented at the ‘Remembering for the Future’ Conference, Oxford, 10–13 July 1988.


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