Daniel Jonah Goldhagen was awarded Germanys Democracy Prize for Hitlers Willing Executioners. [Deep breath] This is a difficult book to review as the subject matter is so contentious and horrific. [30] Goldhagen argued for the specific antisemitic nature of Battalion 101's violence by noting that in 1942 the battalion was ordered to shoot 200 Gentile Poles, and instead shot 78 Polish Catholics while shooting 180 Polish Jews later that same day. Bauer also argued that these linguistic limitations substantially impaired Goldhagen from undertaking broader comparative research into European antisemitism, which would have demanded further refinements to his analysis. Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996) posits that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German identity that had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews . I am actually shocked that Goldhagen didn't end the book by suggesting that all ethnic Germans should be rounded up and executed to prevent future atrocities. There is not much evidence of "obvious distaste and reluctance" to kill Poles to be seen in this episode. In his review of Ordinary Men published in July 1992,[8] Goldhagen expressed agreement with several of Browning's findings, namely, that the killings were not, as many people believe, done entirely by SS men, but also by Trawnikis; that the men of Unit 101 had the option not to kill, and a point Goldhagen emphasizes that no German was ever punished in any serious way for refusing to kill Jews. Goldhagen's book tour became, in the opinion of some in the German media, "a triumphant march", as "the open-mindedness that Goldhagen encountered in the land of the perpetrators" was "gratifying" and something of which Germans ought to be proud, even in the context of a book which sought, according to some critics, to "erase the distinction between Germans and Nazis". Steve Crawshaw writes that although the German readership was keenly aware of certain "professional failings" in Goldhagen's book, [T]hese perceived professional failings proved almost irrelevant. | ISBN 9780307426239 I think not. [9] Goldhagen instead contended that "for the vast majority of the perpetrators a monocausal explanation does suffice". When they started invading other nations, they would kill or imprison every Jew they found men, women and children. [76] Their conclusions were that Goldhagen's analysis of the records: seems to follow no stringent methodological approach whatsoever. [47] [70], In 1996, the American historian David Schoenbaum wrote a highly critical book review in the National Review of Hitler's Willing Executioners where he charged Goldhagen with grossly simplifying the question of the degree and virulence of German Antisemitism, and of only selecting evidence that supported his thesis. [54] Bauer wrote of the major pre-1930 political parties, the only party that could be described as radically antisemitic was the conservative German National People's Party, who Bauer called "the party of the traditional, often radical anti-Semitic elites" who were "a definite minority" while the NSDAP won only 2.6% of the vote in the Reichstag elections in May 1928. Goldhagen wants to make the question simply whether the Germans were willing participants or not, and he argues they were. Goldhagen's thesis is that no one was coerced, they had the possibility to refuse to take part, yet few did Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is a richly detailed and provocative history of the Holocaust. In the course of the murderous Operation Reinhard, these men were ordered to round up Jews, and if there was not enough room for them on the trains, to shoot them. I don't feel qualified to review this book about the horrors of the Holocaust..not because I haven't read much about that unbelievable event but because the author puts forward a very controversial approach to the "why" of the slaughter of the Jews that is at odds with most history. [49] Browning wrote: Goldhagen cites numerous instances of gratuitous and voluntaristic killing of Jews as relevant to assessing the attitudes of the killers. Holocaust summary . Resistance in Nazi Germany edited by John J. Michalczyk, New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2004 p. 113. I just started reading Goldhagen's thesis is that the men and women who murdered Jews were not forced to do so, nor were they just following orders after years of conditioning by the Catholic and Lutheran churches and others, and Hitler's maniacal Jew-hatred, they were quite willing to kill Jews they thought should die. Browning argued that the men of Unit 101 agreed willingly to participate in massacres out of a basic obedience to authority and peer pressure, not blood-lust or primal hatred.[7]. A ktet elvitathatatlan rdeme, hogy igen kellemetlen krdseket tol az arcunkba olyasmiket, amelyektl el szoks fordtani a pillantsunkat. Some historians have characterized its reception as an extension of the Historikerstreit, the German historiographical debate of the 1980s that sought to explain Nazi history. BLAMING THE GERMANS. The diversity of the killers has challenged Goldhagen's view that the motivation was a distinct form of German anti-Semitism. [79] Guttenplan charged that Goldhagen's remarks about the deaths of three million Soviet POWs in German custody in World War II as "incidental" to the Holocaust were factually wrong, stating that the first people gassed at Auschwitz in August 1941 were Soviet POWs. Ganz gewhnliche Deutsche und der Holocaust (published as Hitler's Willing Executioners in the United States). Free delivery for many products. [6], In 1992, the American historian Christopher Browning published a book titled Ordinary Men about the Reserve Police Battalion 101, which had been used in 1942 to massacre and round up Jews for deportation to the Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland. Some historians have characterized its reception as an extension of the Historikerstreit, the German historiographical debate of the 1980s that sought to explain Nazi history. Most scholars assume that the German all but total elimination of European Jewry was The accuracy of his work was, in this context, of secondary importance. The thesis under question is nothing less than examining why Nazi and SS troops and officials carried out the Holocaust. [88] The pre-eminent Jewish-American historian Fritz Stern denounced the book as unscholarly and full of racist Germanophobia. The author of the German fantasy book, Neverending Story, avoided fighting for the Wehrmacht only by diving out of a moving train headed to Russia and spending the rest of the war running from the gestapo. [46] In 1997, the German historian Hans Mommsen gave an interview in which he said that Goldhagen had a poor understanding of the diversities of German antisemitism, that he construed "a unilinear continuity of German anti-semitism from the medieval period onwards" with Hitler as its end result, whereas, said Mommsen, it is obvious that Hitler's antisemitic propaganda had no significant impact on the election campaigns between September 1930 and November 1932 and on his coming to power, a crucial phenomenon ignored by Goldhagen. In his effort to prove the exceptional nature of German hatred and bigotry, he ignores the wealth of evidence from a variety of social scientists pointing out the general cruelty and inhumanity of humanity in general. Hilberg, to whom Browning dedicated his monograph, wrote that "Goldhagen has left us with the image of a medieval-like incubus, a demon latent in the German mind waiting for the opportunity for the chance to strike out". Whatever the variations, I think Austrian and German anti-Semitism can be seen of a piece, where there was a central model of Jews and a view that they needed to be eliminated. When Rosenbaum asked Goldhagen about scholarly literature that contends that Austrian anti-Semitism was far more virulent and violent than German anti-Semitism, and if the fact that Hitler was an Austrian had any effect on his thesis, Goldhagen replied: There were regional variations in anti-Semitism even within Germany. Theres been so much written about this controversial book that Im sure I dont have too many details to add that havent been covered before so instead Ill gather some thoughts that have been mulling around in my mind in the week since I finished reading it. Raul Hilberg wondered. Free shipping for many products! I'd agree -- but then point out that the phrase "willing participants" is misleading and wrong. The Best Books to Get Your Finances in Order, Books Based on Your Favorite Taylor Swift Era, Cook a Soul Food Holiday Meal With Rosie Mayes, Jan 28, 1997 Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews . This book is a massive oversimplification of history's worst genocide, and turns the Germans into 1 dimensional demons that stand around twirling their handle bar moustaches and laughing maniacally. [29] Goldhagen noted that the officers in charge of Battalion 101 led by Major Wilhem Trapp allowed the men to excuse themselves from killing if they found it too unpleasant, and Goldhagen used the fact that the vast majority of the men of Battalion 101 did not excuse themselves to argue that this proved the murderous antisemitic nature of German culture. [36][37] Although Hitler's Willing Executioners was sharply criticized in Germany at its debut,[38] the intense public interest in the book secured the author much celebrity among Germans, so much so that Harold Marcuse characterizes him as "the darling of the German public". I suppose I take this book personally, given that my grandparents were German and in Germany during the Holocaust - they weren't Nazis (my very existence is proof of that), they were simply trying to survive, and I think there's a difference between that, and actively aiding genocide. Clendinnen, Inga "The Men in the Green Tunics", Hoffmann, Peter "The German Resistance and the Holocaust" p. 105-126 from Confront! "[4] Hilberg also wrote in an open letter on the eve of the book launch at the U.S. It's main thesis is that the vast majority of Germans during and before WWII had antisemetic beliefs that were of such power and scope, that they led many ordinary Germans to perpetrate and support the destruction of the Jewish people. [51] Browning also contended that the antisemitism of German conservative elites in the military and the bureaucracy long prior to 1933 meant that they made few objections, moral or otherwise to the Nazi/vlkisch antisemitism. This book makes a powerful argument. [60] In a 1996 review in First Things, the American Catholic priest Father Richard John Neuhaus took issue with Goldhagen's claim that the Catholic and Lutheran churches in Germany were genocidal towards the Jews, arguing that there was a difference between Christian and Nazi anti-Semitism. [61] The Canadian historian Peter Hoffmann accused Goldhagen of maligning Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, arguing that Goldhagen had taken wildly out of context the list of Jewish doctors forbidden to practice that Goerdeler as Lord Mayor of Leipzig had issued in April 1935. The author does an admirable job in researching how "ordinary" Germans behaved during the war. [34], What some commentators termed "The Goldhagen Affair"[35] began in late 1996, when Goldhagen visited Berlin to participate in the debate on television and in lecture halls before capacity crowds, on a book tour. He makes a valuable contribution by recognizing the history of anti-Semitism in Germany history prior to WWII and the Holocaust. [] Using Goldhagen's method of handling evidence, one could easily find enough citations from the Ludwigsburg material to prove the exact opposite of what Goldhagen maintains. In this case, I don't think I would. The truth is, there was a predisposition to treat Jews like parasites throughout Europe at that time. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture which had developed in the The Austrian-born American historian Raul Hilberg has stated that Goldhagen is "totally wrong about everything. [2][65][66] Common complaints suggest that Goldhagen's primary hypothesis is either "oversimplified",[67] or represents "a bizarre inversion of the Nazi view of the Jews" turned back upon the Germans. Auschwitz long figured as the preeminent site of the Holocaust. Bibliography: Bibliography Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. [3] In response to their book, Goldhagen sought a retraction and apology from Birn, threatening at one point to sue her for libel and according to Salon declaring Finkelstein "a supporter of Hamas". ), This page was last edited on 15 March 2023, at 10:24. Abacus 1997 at the best online prices at eBay! Hitler's Willing Executioners Quotes Showing 1-2 of 2. He claims they weren't forced to do it, but chose to. Holocaust Memorial Museum that "The book is advertised as something that will change our thinking. The Jewish establishment has embraced Goldhagen as if he were Mr Holocaust himself All this is absurd, because the criticism of Goldhagen is backed up so well."[73]. [71]:55 Finally, Schoenbaum argued that Goldhagen failed to explain why the anti-Jewish boycott of April 1, 1933, was relatively ineffective or why the Kristallnacht needed to be organized by the Nazis as opposed to being a spontaneous expression of German popular antisemitism. [53] Bauer wrote of the main parties of the Weimar Coalition that dominated German politics until 1930, the leftist SPD and the liberal DDP were opposed to anti-Semitism while the right-of-the-centre Catholic Zentrum was "moderately" antisemitic. [19] The British historian Sir Ian Kershaw, a leading expert in the social history of the Third Reich, wrote, "The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference,"[20][21] that is, that the progress leading up to Auschwitz was motivated by a vicious form of antisemitism on the part of the Nazi elite, but that it took place in a context where the majority of German public opinion was indifferent to what was happening. Her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality. [62] On 11 April 1935, Goerdeler ordered the end of Haake's boycott, and provided a list of "non-Aryan" physicians permitted to operate under the existing laws and those who were excluded. "[91] Goldhagen replied: "If the Nazis had never taken power, there would not have been a Hitler. Daniel Goldhagen's immensely successful and thoroughly deplorable Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust falls within this category. [45] Some historians have criticized or simply dismissed the text, citing among other deficiencies Goldhagen's "neglect of decades of research in favour of his own preconceptions", which he proceeds to articulate in an "intemperate, emotional, and accusatory tone". That view was the mainspring of what was, in essence, voluntary barbarism. They all actively hated Jews, Slavs, Roma, blacks, and others with extreme passion and happily participated in their murder. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of eliminationist anti-Semitism that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews . An Essay on the Reception of, "The dispute between Goldhagen and Finkelstein", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hitler%27s_Willing_Executioners&oldid=1144747678, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from June 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Clendinnean, Inga "The Men in the Green Tunics" pages 114-132 from, Birn, Ruth Bettina, and Riess, Volker, "Revising The Holocaust", in. How do you fight against this kind of madness when you are rendered powerless by the state, be it by fear, by law, or? On the other hand, given what is going on in Iraq today, or in Darfur today, in Rwanda a few years ago, or Bosnia a decade ago, I think we are living proof ofsomething. Everybody got in on the discussion: survivors and scholars, journalists and talk-show hosts, Jews and non-Jews. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. It can begin its hateful work anywhere. The Books Alexis Patterson Is Loving Right Now, Browse All Our Lists, Essays, and Interviews, Amazing Childrens Books by Arab and Arab American Authors. Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. For example, an ambitious historian could write about the hula-hoop, and how it brought about dtente between America and the Soviet Union. I read this years ago and was shocked at the implications of the author's premise, although not unwilling to accept it. [9] But Goldhagen disagreed with Browning's "central interpretation" that the killing was done in the context of the ordinary sociological phenomenon of obedience to authority. This author simply hates all Germans and claims they were all just like Hitler. [59], The Israeli historian Omer Bartov wrote that to accept Goldhagen's thesis would also have to mean accepting that the entire German Jewish community was "downright stupid" from the mid-19th century onwards because it is otherwise impossible to explain why they chose to remain in Germany, if the people were so murderously hostile or why so many German Jews wanted to assimilate into an "eliminationist anti-Semitic" culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. x + 622 pp. Hitler was a dictator that ordered the execution of millions of Jews and other people, during his reign of Nazi Germany. Goldhagen arrived in Germany in September 1996 for a book tour, and appeared on several television talk shows, as well as a number of sold-out panel discussions. Also, his focus on German crimes during the Holocaust blinds him to the genocide perpetrates in other European countries by other European nationals. [67] American historian Gordon A. Craig and Der Spiegel have argued that whatever the book's flaws, it should be welcomed because it will reinvigorate the debate on the Holocaust and stimulate new scholarship. Goldhagen argues that the case of the Lipowa and Flughafen Jewish labor camps in Lublin demonstrates that in contrast to other victims, only Jewish labor was treated murderously by the Germans without regard for and indeed counter to economic rationality. Goldhagen argues that eliminationist antisemitism was the cornerstone of German national identity, was unique to Germany, and because of it ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is a controversial American author and former associate professor of political science and social studies at Harvard University. 'Perpetrators and Victims: The Goldhagen Debate and Beyond", in LaCapra, D. Shandley, Robert & Riemer, Jeremiah (eds. [35], Goldhagen was awarded the Democracy Prize in 1997 by the German Journal for German and International Politics, which asserted that "because of the penetrating quality and the moral power of his presentation, Daniel Goldhagen has greatly stirred the consciousness of the German public." Those of you who know me, know that I've never handed out a 1-star review before today. The New Yorker, April 22, 1996 P. 44. Did I mention most of the racial theories including the creation of the fictional "Aryan" race and the concept of killing the Jew race were developed outside of Germany? [54] Bauer charged that it was the Great Depression, not an alleged culture of murderous anti-Semitism that allowed the NSDAP to make its electoral breakthrough in the Reichstag elections of September 1930. $17.95 (paper), ISBN 978--679-77268-2; $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978--679-44695-8. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews . [2] In Germany, the leftist general public's insistence on further penitence prevailed, according to most observers. The book also demonizes ethnic Germans in a similar way that Protocols of the Elder's of Zion demonized the Jews. Hitler's Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Goldhagen replied that voting for or against the wildly antisemitic vlkisch parties had nothing to do with antisemitic feeling, and that people could still hate Jews without voting for the vlkisch parties. This about the predators of the Holocaust, including groups and individuals who made the major decisions establishing the policy of extermination the Jewish people under Nazi regime, executed and supported it. Hitler's Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. [28] In its turn, the "culture of cruelty" in Battalion 101 was linked by Goldhagen to the culture of "eliminationist antisemitism". Nem vletlen, hogy a ktet jelents rszben nem az SS-szel, hanem a rendrzszlaljakkal foglalkozik ezeket az egysgeket ugyanis nem ncikkal, hanem a trsadalom legszlesebb rtegbl vlogatva tltttk fel, nem vizsglva a belpk prtllst, kvetkezskppen tagjaik kztt meglepen kevs politikailag elktelezett szemlyt tallunk. Author goes to Berlin to debate Holocaust, Forum on Holocaust canceled after an author withdraws, Holocaust writer in storm over role of Catholic Church, "Goldhagen Wins German Prize For Holocaust Book", "Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 'Crazy' Thesis: A Critique of Hitler's Willing Executioners", "Motives, Causes, and Alibis: A Reply to My Critics", "Why Obama Might Save Israel From Nuclear Iran", "'Hitler's Willing Executioners': An Exchange,", "Goldhagen - His Critics and His Contribution", "Goldhagen in Germany: Historians' Nightmare & Popular Hero. Some of his critics have agreed with him that his thesis is "not intrinsically racist or otherwise illegitimate", including Ruth Bettina Birn and Norman Finkelstein (A Nation on Trial). To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. Hoffmann contended that what happened was that on April 9, 1935, the Deputy Mayor of Leipzig, the National Socialist Rudolf Haake, banned all Jewish doctors from participating in public health insurance and advised all municipal employees not to consult Jewish doctors, going beyond the existing antisemitic laws then in place. [5] Yehuda Bauer was similarly condemnatory, questioning how an institute such as Harvard could award a doctorate for a work which so "slipped through the filter of critical scholarly assessment". It's been nearly ten years since I read this book but I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Holocaust history. It still does. The book Hitler's Willing Executioners begins with Goldhagen's thesis. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen (Government and Social Studies/Harvard) offers irrefutable proof that will force us to reconsider our previous understanding of the Nazis' genocidal project. Not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social . But Hitler's exemplified and brought to an apotheosis the particular form of eliminationist anti-Semitism that came to the fore in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Germans weren't following orders, trying to cover their asses, or acting with too much indifference like other historians believe. 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