From mobile killing units, to the camps, to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion.Hitlers Willing Executioners is an original, indeed brilliant contribution to theliterature on the Holocaust.New York Review of BooksThe most important book ever published about the HolocaustEloquently written, meticulously documented, impassionedA model of moral and scholarly integrity.Philadelphia Inquirer. [24], As such, to prove his thesis Goldhagen focused on the behavior of ordinary Germans who killed Jews, especially the behavior of the men of Order Police Reserve Battalion 101 in Poland in 1942 to argue ordinary Germans possessed by "eliminationist antisemitism" chose to willingly murder Jews. Quite a radical departure from the "I was only obeying orders" school of thought. Hitler s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, 601 pp. As a teenager Hitler served in WWI and years later was thrown in jail, where he wrote his book Mien Kampf. He does not allow the witness statements he uses to speak for themselves. [49] Browning wrote: Goldhagen cites numerous instances of gratuitous and voluntaristic killing of Jews as relevant to assessing the attitudes of the killers. I found it very repetitive and overly haranguing. Some of the most comprehensive and enduring takes on SS violence were produced by the philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt. [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. It has no nationality. You might say Kristallnacht was like a litmus test for the Nazis to test the response of "ordinary" Germans to their Jewish policy. Goldhagen (Government and Social Studies/Harvard) offers irrefutable proof that will force us to reconsider our previous understanding of the Nazis' genocidal project. Just for joining youll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members. "Revising the Holocaust" (1997) pp.199-200, 209. Unreliable sources and much speculation in this obviously vengeful and hateful book. The laudatio, awarded for the first time since 1990, was given by Jrgen Habermas and Jan Philipp Reemtsma. Would the German Royal family have kept marrying with people they considered subhuman? There are problems with the book, for those who know a lot about the Holocaust. [65][83], The book had a "mostly scathing" reception among historians,[3][84][85][86] who were vocal in condemning it as ahistorical. It's one of those books. The truth is, there was a predisposition to treat Jews like parasites throughout Europe at that time. [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. Were Austrians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians on the whole any better than the Germans? I remember that the book was controversial when it came out in 1996, and when I finally read it, I can see why. If this book was widely followed, we would have little chance of preventing future genocides. [71]:56, Hitler's Willing Executioners also drew controversy with the publication of two critical articles: "Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 'Crazy' Thesis", by the American political science professor Norman Finkelstein and initially published in the UK political journal New Left Review,[72] and "Historiographical review: Revising the Holocaust", written by the Canadian historian Ruth Bettina Birn and initially published in the Historical Journal of Cambridge. [23] Other historians, such as the Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka, the Israeli historian David Bankier, and the American historian Aron Rodrigue, while differing from Kershaw over many details about German public opinion, arguing that the term "passive complicity" is a better description than "indifference", have largely agreed with Kershaw that there was a chasm of opinion about the Jews between the Nazi "true believers" and the wider German public, whose views towards Jews seemed to have expressed more of a dislike than a hatred. 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. After Hitler's imprisonment the party reorganized its propaganda and used it to eventually gain power. 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. The anti-Christ of history - a truly shocking effort by a misleading author. 'Perpetrators and Victims: The Goldhagen Debate and Beyond", in LaCapra, D. Shandley, Robert & Riemer, Jeremiah (eds. It always amazes me that people, who have constructed their own paradigms, and have worked vigorously at maintaining it, can ignore the mountain of evidence to the contrary. In one instance, the commander of the unit gave his men the choice of opting out of this duty if they found it too unpleasant; the majority chose not to exercise that option, resulting in fewer than 15 men out of a battalion of 500 opting out. [4][5], Hitler's Willing Executioners won the Democracy Prize of the Journal for German and International Politics. Brownings book is much easier to read for the lay person of Holocaust studies. Szerinte a npirts nem egy szk rteg ltal elkvetett cselekmnysorozat, amihez a tbbsg legfeljebb tudatlanul asszisztlt, hanem egy antiszemitizmustl teljesen titatott trsadalom kzs bne. 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. [3] These articles were later published as the book A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. [71]:545 Furthermore, Schoenbaum complained that Goldhagen did not take a comparative approach with Germany placed in isolation, thereby falsely implying that Germans and Germans alone were the only nation that saw widespread antisemitism. [82] The phrase ein Volk von Dmonen (translated "a people/nation of demons") was often used by the Nazis to describe Jews, and the title of the cover story was meant by Rudolf Augstein and the editors of Der Spiegel to suggest a moral equivalence between the Nazi view of Jews and Goldhagen's view of Germans. [88] The pre-eminent Jewish-American historian Fritz Stern denounced the book as unscholarly and full of racist Germanophobia. [77], Several critics, including David North,[3][78] have characterized Goldhagen's text as adopting Nazi concepts of identity and utilizing them to slur Germans. The Books Alexis Patterson Is Loving Right Now, Browse All Our Lists, Essays, and Interviews, Amazing Childrens Books by Arab and Arab American Authors. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTORS EC GOLDHAGEN DANIEL JONAH ENGLISH PAPERBACK / SOFT at the best online prices at eBay! Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is the author of #1 international bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Vintage, 1997), published in fifteen languages, which. Goldhagen asserts that this mentality grew out of medieval attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized. Open Preview. Start earning points for buying books! [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. [31] Goldhagen used this incident to argue the men of Battalion 101 were reluctant to kill Polish Catholics, but only too willing to murder Polish Jews. The Austrian-born American historian Raul Hilberg has stated that Goldhagen is "totally wrong about everything. None of these is true.[75]. A ktet elvitathatatlan rdeme, hogy igen kellemetlen krdseket tol az arcunkba olyasmiket, amelyektl el szoks fordtani a pillantsunkat. Professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen talked spoke about his new book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Avoid this book, in my opinion. It is precisely because this . Around the globe, there have been dozens of self-declared fascist movements (and a good deal more that go by different labels), and few of them have embraced Nazi-style genocide. The author does an admirable job in researching how "ordinary" Germans behaved during the war. 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". In 1932, at eighteen, he became a member of the Hitler Youth. [26], Using Geertz's anthropological methods, Goldhagen argued by studying the men of Battalion 101 one could engage in a "thick description" of the German "eliminationist antisemitic" culture. 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. Ugyanolyan embertelenl viselkedtek, mint az SS*. [39] Many media commentators observed that, while the book launched a passionate national discussion about the Holocaust,[40] this discussion was carried out civilly and respectfully. The book also demonizes ethnic Germans in a similar way that Protocols of the Elder's of Zion demonized the Jews. 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 . Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. I'd agree -- but then point out that the phrase "willing participants" is misleading and wrong. Hitlers Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Essentially, this book has one central premise. They all actively hated Jews, Slavs, Roma, blacks, and others with extreme passion and happily participated in their murder. Daniel Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, explains the historical context that brought about the Nazi party and the Holocaust. Most scholars assume that the German all but total elimination of European Jewry was It SHOULD be a "must read" for all people, especially those in school, but the author is dry and academic and the book could be cut by at least 1/3. Until deciding to devote himself full-time to writing, he taught political science and social studies for many years at Harvard University. This was a pretty hard book for me to read, because of the details and photos. 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. Reviewed by Carl Schulkin (Pembroke Hill School, Kansas City, Mo) Published on H-High-S (December, 1996) The second and third case studies of Hitler's Willing Executioners are aimed at meeting the burden of proof on these two points. [50], About the long-term origins of the Holocaust, Browning argued that by the end of the 19th century, antisemitism was widely accepted by most German conservatives and that virtually all German conservatives supported the Nazi regime's antisemitic laws of 193334 (and the few who did object like President Hindenburg only objected to the inclusion of Jewish war veterans in the antisemitic laws that they otherwise supported) but that left to their own devices, would not have gone further and that for all their fierce anti-Semitism, German conservatives would not have engaged in genocide. 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. "Cultural antisemitism," directed primarily against the Eastern Jews, was part of the "cultural code" of German conservatives, who were mainly found in the German officer corps and the high civil administration. [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. "[13] Instead, Goldhagen argued that historians should examine ordinary Germans of the Nazi period, in the same way, they examined the Aztecs who believed in the necessity of human sacrifice to appease the gods and ensure that the sun would rise every day. $17.95 (paper), ISBN 978--679-77268-2; $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978--679-44695-8. Whatever its weaknesses as causal model, it is first-rate history that has transformed the way we look at the Holocaust. Goldhagen's book was treated as a way of ensuring that Germany came to terms with its past. Emellett ezek az egysgek jellemzen az idsebb korosztlybl verbuvldtak vagyis nem a Hitler-rezsim oktatsi viszonyai kztt szocializldtak. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. 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. Of course they were willing participants in the sense that they consciously carried out their actions as humans with as much "free will" as anyone else. 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. By Clive James. [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. [91] Rosenbaum asked "So you would agree with Himmelfarb's argument? In May 1996, Goldhagen was interviewed about Hitler's Willing Executioners by the American journalist Ron Rosenbaum. [54], Formally, at least, the Jews had been fully emancipated with the establishment of the German Empire, although they were kept out of certain influential occupations, enjoyed extraordinary prosperity Germans intermarried with Jews: in the 1930s some 50,000 Jews were living in mixed German-Jewish marriages, so at least 50,000 Germans, and presumably parts of their families, had familial contact with the Jews. By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. [87] "[W]hy does this book, so lacking in factual content and logical rigour, demand so much attention?" I try to be critical in my choice of books about the Holocaust, because there are so many to choose from. [43] Detractors have contended that the book is "profoundly flawed"[44] or "bad history". [58] Clendinnen ended her essay by stating she found Browning's account of Battalion 101 to be the more believable. Buy, Dec 18, 2007 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. About The Film With his first book, the #1 international bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners (Vintage, 1997) Daniel Jonah Goldhagen - then a professor of political science at Harvard. This book finally gave me the answer. [1], Goldhagen's book stoked controversy and debate in Germany and the United States. What made Germany unique was the level of organization and planning that went into this genocide. He prefers instead to use parts of the statements selectively, to re-interpret them according to his own point of view, or to take them out of context and make them fit into his own interpretative framework. It can begin its hateful work anywhere. [69] Kershaw wrote in 2000 that Goldhagen's book would "occupy only a limited place in the unfolding, vast historiography of such a crucially important topic-probably at best as a challenge to historians to qualify or counter his 'broad-brush' generalisations". [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. Ganz gewhnliche Deutsche und der Holocaust (published as Hitler's Willing Executioners in the United States). Daniel Goldhagen's immensely successful and thoroughly deplorable Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust falls within this category. It was very detailed and extensively researched and Im glad I read it and finally got the answer Ive been seeking for so long. Much of Goldhagen's book is concerned with the actions of the same Reserve Battalion 101 of the Nazi German Ordnungspolizei and his narrative challenges numerous aspects of Browning's book. 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. Unfortunately, much of the debate over the book has been focused on a simplistic interpretation of Goldhagen's argument. American writer Daniel Goldhagen viewed the very same unit as "willing executioners," sharing Hitler's vision of genocidal anti-Semitism and finding their tasks unpleasant but necessary. Hitler's Willing Executioners Quotes Showing 1-2 of 2. [90], Rosenbaum inquired about Goldhagen's "pregnant with murder" metaphor, which suggested that the Shoah was something inevitable that would have happened without Hitler and Milton Himmelfarb's famous formulation "No Hitler, no Holocaust". The accuracy of his work was, in this context, of secondary importance. That doesnt mean it wasnt a great book. [] Goldhagen's book is not driven by sources, be they primary or secondary ones. The thesis under question is nothing less than examining why Nazi and SS troops and officials carried out the Holocaust. Holocaust Memorial Museum that "The book is advertised as something that will change our thinking. 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. [32] Goldhagen used antisemitic statements by Cardinal Adolf Bertram as typical of what he called the Roman Catholic Church's support for genocide. These are relatively few, though, and are dealt with nicely in Brownings scholarly work, "Ordinary Men." Ez taln a legbrutlisabb szakknyv, amit valaha olvastam ehhez kpest a Schindler listja csak jtszds klkbrnyokkal zldell mezkn. "The conclusion of this book is that antisemitism moved many thousands of "ordinary" Germans and would have moved millions more, had they been appropriately positionedto slaughter Jews. 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 . It still does. 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. Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. 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. Free shipping for many products! He focuses a lot on the police battalions, often middle aged men who didn't belong to the Nazi party but who had no problem murdering Jews, even women, children and the infirm elderly. It required a state. Kwiet, Konrad: "'Hitler's Willing Executioners' and Ordinary Germans': Some Comments on Goldhagen's Ideas". Despite the fact that up to 70,000 Germans were killed for real or imagined opposition to the Nazis. In this book we learn that not only did the average German know the full details of the Holocaust and General Plan OST (despite both being highly classified), but supported these measures with glee. It strikes me, though, looking through the various reviews left by other readers, that those who rated Goldhagen's book with a 1 or a 2 were most likely those who either do not have the scholarly background to appreciate this work or who simply skimmed through it and never really read it for biased reasons. [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. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. [10] They were not ordinary men as we usually understand men to be, but "ordinary members of extraordinary political culture, the culture of Nazi Germany, which was possessed of a hallucinatory, lethal view of the Jews. [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." Would Goldhagen have omitted this incident if the victims had been Jews and an anti-Semitic motivation could have easily been inferred? [25] The 450 or so men of Battalion 101 were mostly middle-aged, working-class men from Hamburg who showed little interest in National Socialism and who had no special training to prepare them for genocide. The book has stirred violent debates among historians and readers alike and who is to say whether Mr. Goldhagen is correct. Energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of Ordinary Germans attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized daily features... Is, there was a pretty hard book for me to read, because the... 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