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OpenStudy (anonymous):

Will medal and fan! Was there a significant reason for why Hitler never visited a single concentration camp?

OpenStudy (anonymous):

the image of Hitler was carefully kept out of the record of the Holocaust. He signed many documents authorizing and calling for the extermination of people but these documents were kept secret from the German people, just like the reality of the extermination camps. No chance. Heinrich Himmler, a very high ranking Nazi and the man who developed the infrastructure and logistics of the extermination camps did visit the camps. The is video footage of him and other Nazi officers but most of them are carefully staged to conceal the real conditions of the prisoners' lives. When the camera was not rolling he witnessed the gassing process and threw up. Other famous Nazis who visited concentration camps regularly and who actually came into close contact with prisoners were Dr. Joseph Mengele, Dr. Eduard Wirths, Dr. Sigmund Rascher and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone...but yeah. Top Nazi officers rarely came into regular contact with the prisoners. The duty of supervising, feeding, transferring and killing the prisoners were left to lower military and sometimes non-German civilians who got the chance of their lives to assist in these grim actions. Disposing of the bodies was actually left to the prisoners. If you want to do something more logical and still powerful, research top ranking officers in charge of specific camps. Like Amon Goth (perhaps you've seen a bit of his deeds in Schindler's list) who was the stationed commander of Plazow, commander Franz Stangl of Treblinka or Rudolf Hoess, commander of Auschwitz to mention some. Their biographies must be readily available in Wikipedia.

OpenStudy (anonymous):

but There is likewise no evidence to indicate the answer, so all I can do is speculate. I rather suspect some combination of the two. In general (with the warning that this is still somewhat up for debate in the field; see Browning's writings on functionalism vs. intentionalism), Hitler was a pretty hands-off kind of guy as far as governance went*; he would make what he wanted to happen known, and his subordinates would scramble and compete do do it. Therefore, the minutiae of the Holocaust was more his subordinates' concern (thus explaining Himmler's trip to Minsk, where he witnessed the shooting of a hundred Jews); Hitler probably wasn't particularly interested in the detail, as long as it was getting done. Also, Germany is of course at war in this period, so Hitler had other things to occupy his time. I speculate both lack of interest and lack of time. *The exception to this being his micromanagement of military affairs, but I'm not a military historian, so it slipped me mind.

OpenStudy (serenavdw):

is this a yes or no question or do you need an explanation?

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