Title: Nazi biopolitics and the dark geographies of the<i>selva</i>
Abstract: Abstract This article examines the spatialities of Nazi genocidial practices. It does so by engaging with the concepts of selva and città, as inspired by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and drawing upon a broader tradition in human geography. Although the historical events that we recall have been extensively discussed elsewhere, we revisit them here through the lens of two geographical metaphors, the selva and the città, in order to gain new insight into the spatial and philosophical dimensions of Nazi geopolitics and biopolitics. We also comment on how these latter have contributed to the merging of the 'ideal' and the 'factual' realms of the Nazi geopolitical project for the creation of new vital space for the German people. We suggest that much can be learned from an examination of the ways in which particular understandings of (imagined and material) space marked the genocidial plans and practices of the Nazi perpetrators, producing a specific geography of genocide, where (spatial) theory and the implementation of extermination came together. Notes Dominick LaCapra, History in Transit (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004), p 11. LaCapra, History, p 111. Samuel Moyn, 'In the aftermath of camps', in Frank Biess and Robert G. Moeller (eds), Histories of the Aftermath (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), pp 49–64. Mark Mazower, 'Foucault, Agamben: theory and the Nazi', Boundary 2, Vol 35, No 1, 2008, p 27. Mazower, 'Foucault', p 27. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), orig. Homo Sacer (Turin: Einaudi, 1995). Claudio Minca, 'Agamben's geographies of modernity', Political Geography, Vol 26, 2007, pp 78–97. See, among others: Andrew Charlesworth, 'The topography of genocide', in Dan Stone (ed.), The Historiography of the Holocaust (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp 216–251; David B. Clarke, Marcus A. Doel and Francis X. McDonough, 'Holocaust topologies: singularity, politics and space', Political Geography, Vol 15, Nos 6–7, 1996, pp 457–489; Tim Cole, Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto (London: Routledge, 2003); Stuart Elden, 'National socialism and the politics of calculation', Social and Cultural Geography, Vol 7, No 5, 2006, pp 753–769. Agamben, Homo (orig.), pp 116–123. Cited in Richard King, 'Creative landscaping', The Classical Journal, Vol 85, No 3, 1990, p 227. Sandro Chignola, 'Civis, Civitas, Civilitas', Contributions to the History of Concepts, Vol 3, No 2, 2007, p 238. Agamben, Homo, p 105. Agamben, Homo, p 105. Agamben, Homo, p 106. Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Harvard: Belknap, 2008), p 150. Giorgio Agamben, The Open (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), p 12. Agamben, Open, p 13. Agamben, Open, p 12. Agamben, Open, p 37. Agamben, Open, pp 37–38. Agamben, Open, pp 15–16, emphasis added. Agamben, Open, p 22. Wendy Lower, Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), p 186. Giorgio Agamben, Mezzi senza fine (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1996), p 25. Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), pp 530–532. Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Architects of Annihilation (London: Phoenix, 2002), p 255. On the controversial relationship between the 'General Plan for the East' and Operation Barbarossa see also Alex J. Kay, Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), in particular, pp 100–102; for an alternative interpretation, see Peter Witte et al., eds, Der Terminkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians, 1999), p 179, n 43. Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution (Lincoln: University of Nevada Press, 2004). For a more nuanced approach to the relation between the 'territorial' and 'final' solutions see Peter Longerich, Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman and Abraham Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), pp 253, 256. Eugen Kogon, Les chambres à gaz secret d'État (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 2000), pp 20–23. The same ambiguity is found in Ausrotten, that translates as 'to destroy', but also 'to stamp out', 'to eradicate'. See Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), pp 205–208. See, among others, Mechtild Rössler, 'Applied geography and area research in Nazi society', Environment and Planning D, Vol 7, No 4, 1989, pp 419–431. See, among others, Tilman A. Schenk, 'Mass-producing traditional small cities', Journal of Planning History, Vol 2, No 2, 2003, pp 107–139. Aly, Architects, pp 58–72. Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: Knopf, 2002). Agamben, Homo, p 175. Kogon, Chambres, pp 72–97. Kogon, Chambres, p 115. Bodgan Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernment: Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939–1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), pp 205–206 cited in Christopher Browning, Collected Memories (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p 28. Browning, Collected Memories, p 28. Robert J. Van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz. Evidence from the Irving Trial (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), pp 267, 288. Andrew Charlesworth and Mike Addis, 'Memorialization and the ecological landscapes of Holocaust sites', Landscape Research, Vol 27, No 3, 2002, p 244. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jewry (Teaneck: Holmes and Meier, 1961), pp 218–219. See, among others, Shlomo Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009). On the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger see French L. MacLean, The Cruel Hunters: SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger Hitler's Most Notorious Anti-Partisan Unit (Atglen: Schiffer Publishing, 1998) and Christian Ingrao, Les chasseurs noir: La brigade Dirlewanger (Paris: Éditions Perrin, 2006). Ingrao, Chasseurs, pp 116–117. Dan Stone, 'Modernity and violence: theoretical reflections on the Einsatzgruppen', Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 1, No 3, 1999, pp 367–378. Ingrao, Chasseurs, pp 123–124 (author's translation). Ingrao, Chasseurs, pp 21–61. Ingrao, Chasseurs, pp 101–113. MacLean, Hunters, pp 60–63. MacLean, Hunters, pp 175–198. Ingrao, Chasseurs, p 178. See Ulrich Herbert, Hitler's Foreign Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). See, among others, Gordon J. Horwitz, Ghettostadt: Lódź and the Making of a Nazi City (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008) and Sybille Steinbacher, Auschwitz: A History (New York: Ecco, 2005). Wolfgang Sofsky, The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp 55–64. Deborah Dwork and Robert J. van Pelt, Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (New York: Norton, 1996), pp 236–275. Agamben, Homo, p 107. Daniel Blatman, Le marce della morte (Milano: Rizzoli, 2009), p 239. Perry Biddiscombe, The Last Nazis (Stroud: Tempus, 2000), p 20. Agamben, Homo, p 107.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 44
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