What arguments were made against holding individuels accouintable during the holocaust?

Answer 1

The first and most used is the 'following orders' argument. There is also the claim that they were forced to, by threats to them or to others. There is the argument that what they were doing was right and legal at the time.

These in a way can be considered the same argument, but i presume that you want more detail: Many (or most) of those involved in the Holocaust were in the military, or paramilitary, where in theory disobeying an order carried consequences. As such they were the tool of those above them if this argument were to be taken ad absurdum, then only Hitler would have to take responsibility. This argument is not especially relevant to those civilians or members of civilian forces (like the police). This does not hold up very well as soldiers were not punished (by those above) for not wanting to carry out actions against civilians.

The argument of being forced to; is especially relevant to those victims who worked for the Germans, like the Jewish councils in the ghettos, or the Jewish sonderkommando in Auschwitz. They of course did have a choice; comply or die. Though this may not seem like a choice, a surprising amount of people chose the latter and if everyone had chosen the latter then the Germans would have had to seek an alternative. This argument was not upheld for the first decade or two after the war and those who used it were considered traitors or collaborators.

The Germans had endured a decade of Propaganda by the time of the Holocaust and had been told that Jews were subhuman and they had seen the laws and legislation that had been enacted. Society had deemed that this was the right course and to do anything else was to risk denouncement. The other arguments do not really describe the atmosphere of fear and doubt that many people lived in where even though there was no one forcing people at gun-point like in the previous cases, there was the worry that if people did not do what was expected, then they might end up in that situation soon.

The arguments for individual accountability are not over, recently in the news was the case of the French train drivers, they could not use any of the aforementioned arguments, but although without their actions French Jews would not have arrived at Auschwitz, they did not harm anyone themselves. There are more of these types of people than people who murdered by themselves.