Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust | Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust | Daniel Jonah Goldhagen | Many of the reviewers of this book validate the author's point....

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Hitler's Willing E...

	Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Vintage, 1997 - 656 pages average customer review:based on 201 reviews view larger image
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An important book on the Holocaust

By focusing on three important components: the perpetrators of the Holocaust, German anti-Semitism, and the nature of German society during the Nazi period, the author of this book does an excellent job explaining why the Holocaust happened.

Originally, when this book was first published, it was well received by the general public and became an acclaimed best seller. Within a few short years, this book was backfired with criticism from several scholars and historians on the subject, including Raul Hilberg and Yehuda Bauer.

Most critics argue that Goldhagen's hypothesis on the subject is far too simplistic for an event so "complex" and "irrational" that it simply cannot be explained logically. Although, one must keep in mind that some people, for whatever reasons they may have, simply do not want the Holocaust to be explained. Goldhagen, on the other hand, does want the Holocaust to be explained and does so quite effectively in this book.

Because of the criticism Goldhagen received, several myths became associated with this book - one of them is that Goldhagen charges all of the Germans with collective guilt. That is not true. Goldhagen clearly states that the subject of the book is to understand "the actions and the mind-set of the tens of thousands of ordinary Germans... who became genocidal Killers." That's tens of thousands. The German population was in the tens of millions.

Nowhere in this book does Goldhagen accuse all Germans of directly participating with the slaughter of the Jews. However, as Goldhagen shows, anti-Semitism was so deeply embedded in German society (as well as in most parts of Europe), that hundreds of thousands of Germans voluntarily chose to participate in the annihilation of the Jews, one way or another, while millions of others looked on and remained unaffected. Centuries of old anti-Jewish traditions in Germany resulted in this lack of sympathy for the Jews.

Not only was anti-Semitism socially acceptable in Germany, but it was also socially encouraged through literature, religious sermons, caricatures, and other propaganda. As a result, much of Germany's population openly embraced anti-Semitism. One can always look at the hundreds of pictures that show Germans publicly humiliating, torturing, dehumanizing, and even executing Jews. These pictures are absolutely shocking. And what about all the anti-Semitic rallies in Germany during the 1930s? Or the stadiums packed with thousands of anti-Semitic Germans in full support of the Nazis? Doesn't that say something?

So the question is, why do the likes of Hilberg, Bauer, and Browning criticize Goldhagen's book? The answer to this question could be that they don't really have much of a choice. Their hypothesis on the Holocaust differs from Goldhagen's, and by praising Goldhagen's work, they would risk diminishing their own - since their analysis are not entirely consistent with each other. Had they applauded Goldhagen's work, they would have been questioned as to why they did not reach the same conclusion years ago. Their own reputation is on the line.

Other critics of this book include the near-paranoid and self proclaimed anti-Zionist Norman G. Finkelstein, who went as far as writing a whole book (with an crony named Ruth Birn) about "Hitler's Willing Executioners." Critics like Finkelstein are often supported by neo-Nazi and other anti-Semitic groups.

Notwithstanding, Hitler's Willing Executioners is an important book on the subject of the Holocaust and must not be disregarded. Without such awareness, history could easily repeat itself.

Another book I highly recommend is John Weiss' "Ideology of Death: Why the Holocaust Happened in Germany."

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Many of the reviewers of this book validate the author's point....

Hitler's rise to power and tyranny was enabled and in fact, empowered by, the needs and convictions of the German people. The rise of Hitler and the pervasive support of him in Germany at that time were a coemergent phenomena. One did not create the other. Goldhagen's book is important in that it attempts to speak to the German public's complicitous role in the horrors that occured during WW II to Jews (which Goldhagen's thesis focuses on) and non-Jews alike. Many of the reviewers here are examples of Hitler's "willing executioners" of the truth, of decency and of humanity.

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The message that matters

Goldhagen's large book has basically a single message: the perpetrators of Holocaust are Germans, not some Nazis. Ordinary Germans from all walks of life.

The book is a barely edited doctoral dissertation. There is very little emotional content, just a mass of facts which confirm the thesis. The book is very logical, and formally proves the thesis beyond doubt.

One thing I didn't like in the book. Goldhagen constantly repeats that ther Germans' behavior was un-Christian. But he thoroughly proves elsewhere that the Holocaust and German antisemitism in general are firmly rooted in the Christian tradition, that German priests and pastors promoted antisemitism as much as they could.

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