Swords or Shields?

Implementing and Subverting the Final Solution in German-Occupied Europe

(Summary)

“If I could not be your sword, at least I would be your shield.”

– Gen. Henri-Philippe Pétain,

during his trial for war crimes as head of the Vichy Government

This dissertation explains why levels of Jewish victimization varied among Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. I show that the ‘success’ of the German genocide program depended most importantly upon the relationship between Germany and each occupied country. I argue that where German rule was direct, its implementation of the Final Solution was unhindered, and therefore more effective. On the other hand, where Germany ruled through collaborators, the precise implementation of genocidal policies was the result of complex bargaining and negotiations: In return for their loyal cooperation in military or economic policy, collaborators could often get away with partial or simply ‘unenthusiastic’ implementation of the Final Solution. This was often a major factor in reducing rates of Jewish victimization.

This project constitutes a major contribution to the vast literature on the Holocaust, very little of which uses the tools of comparative political science or international relations. However, it also sheds light on more ‘traditional’ issues in contemporary political research, such as state-sponsored violence, ethnic conflict, international hierarchy and military occupations.

Most intriguingly, the project raises harrowing moral questions because it suggests that, by cooperating with Nazi Germany on some aspects of occupational administration, collaborators and countries could protect their own Jewish citizens. Of course, this is not to say that Germany’s allies and henchmen protected Jews for ‘the right reasons’ or even that they did so as part of a well-articulated plan. (And the observation itself does not excuse the collaborators’ direct or indirect participation in other German atrocities.) Nonetheless, insofar as collaboration had ‘beneficial’ as well as deleterious consequences, our moral judgment of that collaboration, and of political criminality more generally, must be reconsidered.