Imperialism and the Political Economy of the Holocaust

Imperialism and the political economy of the Holocaust
By Nick Beams
12 May 2010

This lecture was delivered at San Diego State University on April 29. It was the eighth in a series entitled "Killing for a higher cause: Political violence in a world in crisis" sponsored by the Institute on World Affairs within the Political Science Department of the San Diego State University.

It is now almost seven decades since Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime initiated their program for the mass murder of all European Jews. Our sense of the enormity of this crime has not diminished with the passing of time. On the contrary, the significance of the Holocaust is underscored by events now unfolding—wars of imperialist and colonial aggression in the name of a “war on terror”, deepening rivalries between the major capitalist powers and a breakdown of the capitalist economic order recalling the crises of the 1930s out of which the Nazi regime arose.
If these remarks appear controversial they are intended to be, because the Holocaust itself cannot be understood without penetrating the arguments and disputes that surround it—controversies that have contemporary political relevance.