Ian Kershaw - Functionalist or Intentionalist?
Hi! Starting up my A-Level History NEA coursework soon and getting some research down first, but a question is definitely playing on my mind with this...
Would you consider Ian Kershaw to be a functionalist or intentionalist in terms of the Final Solution? I feel as if he blurs the line between both and im not quite sure how to address this in my NEA, solely because his views fluctuate and my question is pretty cut-and-dry 'Was there a plan or no?'
Can anyone reccommend certain texts which reflect a certain intentionalist/functionalist view by Kershaw? Would this even be good to put in my coursework considering his views are a little rocky?
Would you consider Ian Kershaw to be a functionalist or intentionalist in terms of the Final Solution? I feel as if he blurs the line between both and im not quite sure how to address this in my NEA, solely because his views fluctuate and my question is pretty cut-and-dry 'Was there a plan or no?'
Can anyone reccommend certain texts which reflect a certain intentionalist/functionalist view by Kershaw? Would this even be good to put in my coursework considering his views are a little rocky?
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by ambergriffiths4Hi! Starting up my A-Level History NEA coursework soon and getting some research down first, but a question is definitely playing on my mind with this...
Would you consider Ian Kershaw to be a functionalist or intentionalist in terms of the Final Solution? I feel as if he blurs the line between both and im not quite sure how to address this in my NEA, solely because his views fluctuate and my question is pretty cut-and-dry 'Was there a plan or no?'
Can anyone reccommend certain texts which reflect a certain intentionalist/functionalist view by Kershaw? Would this even be good to put in my coursework considering his views are a little rocky?
Would you consider Ian Kershaw to be a functionalist or intentionalist in terms of the Final Solution? I feel as if he blurs the line between both and im not quite sure how to address this in my NEA, solely because his views fluctuate and my question is pretty cut-and-dry 'Was there a plan or no?'
Can anyone reccommend certain texts which reflect a certain intentionalist/functionalist view by Kershaw? Would this even be good to put in my coursework considering his views are a little rocky?
He's neither. He believes in a synthesis of the two schools (as do most historians now by the way).
Here's a quote from an important article on the debate "The Cumberland Lodge Conference of May 1979 was clearly a milestone in the historiography of the "Third Reich."' As we know, the theme of the conference, "The National Socialist Regime and German Society," provided a platform for sharp disagreement about the place of Hitler in the decision-making processes of the Nazi regime - disagreement which Tim Mason memorably described as between "functionalists" and "intentionalists" examining the Nazi state, thus defining the terms of a debate which occupied a central place in textbooks for years thereafter. The question of whether one should regard the actions of the "National Socialist Regime" as the unfolding of the ideology and expressed intentions of its leadership (and of Hitler in particular), or whether one instead should focus on the dynamics of decision-making processes and the institutional pressures inherent in the Nazi system of government, seemed to dominate discussion of the Nazi state during the 1980s.
Since that time, however, the battle lines have become rather blurred. Already in the first edition of his reasoned and judicious assessment of the historiography, published in 1985, Ian Kershaw concluded that "'Intention' and 'structure' are both essential elements of an explanation of the Third Reich, and need synthesis rather than to be set in opposition to each other."
Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism? on JSTOR
Best quote in the whole article "Interest in the "intentionalist" versus "functionalist" debate now seems
to lie, if it lies anywhere, in that graveyard of historiographical concerns, the English A-level [history] syllabus."
Dr McKerrow
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