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Summary: Review for Hitler's Willing Executioners
Review: Who is to blame for the holocaust and how did it happen? Countless books have offered theories on both questions, but the most infamous of them all is Daniel Goldhagen's entitled "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary German and the Holocaust". Goldhagen answers these question simply and forcefully: the German people are to blame, and it happened because they wanted it to happen. Much like the earlier answers to the questions that surround the Holocaust, Goldhagen's answer is too easy. The earlier, more popularly believed, answers include the theory that the Germans, in their weakened post-WWI economic depression, were hypnotized by Hitler's magnetism and were brainwashed into blaming the Jews for all their problems, the theory that the actual Holocaust was committed by a few SS soldiers in concentration camps and was kept from the knowledge of the average German, and that the Germans are especially susceptible to the bureaucratic coercion of following orders, focused blame away from the German people and explained how it happened by claiming that it was deception or a product of brainwashing. Goldhagen destroys many of these earlier theories, especially the limited nature of the Holocaust committed only by the SS in concentration camps, but does not completely dispel all of them. The bulk of the book, and I believe the more impressive parts, are dedicated to proving that much of the Holocaust was committed by common policemen with guns, without the use of hands-off gas chambers as believed before, and without much coercion. This is shocking and I believe that this successfully destroys the exclusively SS and coercion theories. Where Goldhagen's full thesis falls short is in his more general German character argument. Goldhagen claims that the Germans have been historically anti-Semitic and gradually, as Jewishness began to be viewed more as a race than a religion, Eliminationist. He attempts to prove his claim by offering up anti-Semitic literature throughout German history. This literature proves that the German have always been, even when they were not writing about it, anti-Semitic. Their level of anti-Semitism did not ebb and flow, but was only more intense and less intense and more latent and more patent. But this is obviously a nonfalsifiable claim. If he claims that they are anti-Semitic but latent, how could he know? How could anyone disprove him? It is also interesting that the anti-Semitism which for hundreds of years has been a defining feature of Germaness could suddenly disappear as he claims in 1945. How do we know it is not latent? The book offers a great deal of evidence that destroys the myths that the Holocaust was conducted by a few German SS soldiers. However, it does not prove as far as Goldhagen would like, that every German knew about and supported the Holocaust. The true answers to the question of who is to blame and how did it happen are, unfortunately like most everything else, somewhere in between. This being said, this book is required reading for any student of the Holocaust.
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Summary: PATHETIC!!
Review: I read many books on World War 2 and the Holocaust in three different languages. This book is one of the worst. It targets only the Germans. What about the rest of Europe! What about all the volunteers from France, Holland, Norway and eastern european countries that joined the SS!
What about the Soviet Union. Millions of German soldiers disappeared in concentration camps in Siberia.
I you want a better more objective account on what went on, I recommend the author Janusz Piekalkiewicz.
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Summary: Garbage
Review: The author leaves the reader to believe that mass attrocity on this scale could only be orchestrated by the Germans because of their national character, history, demographics and other factors. Rubbish. Genocide is a far more regular occurence than the author is seemingly aware. First off, if the Holocaust was such a German affair why were Ukrainians, French, Dutch, Romanians, Italians and others so willing to assist in the capture and export of Jews, communists, social democrats and others? Why were similar feats conducted by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Tutsis/Hutsis, etc... Genocide and mass murder are a much larger character trait of mankind then the author chooses to acknowledge in formulating a primitive and incorrect argument. That the Holocaust could only be perpetrated by Germans is truth on a level, but is about as important an argument as saying only Americans were capable of slaughtering the plains Indians. Simply put, this is another garden variety WW2/Nazi/Holocaust book that seeks to make a lot of money at the expense of historical accuracy. Rubbish.
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Summary: fundamental to understanding the Holocaust
Review: One of the most controversial and thought-provoking books of recent years. Goldhagen challenges the accepted view that the Nazis were an aberration & were solely responsible for the Holocaust. Instead he argues that the virulent eliminationist anti-semitism that fueled the Holocaust was a unique and intrinsic part of German Culture and that the entire society voluntarily participated in it's enactment. Goldhagen's demonstration of the guilt of "ordinary" Germans seems pretty incontrovertible. One section of the book focuses on a single police unit to show that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were average Germans and not fanatic Nazis. He shows that they could refuse orders they disagreed with and not suffer dire consequences, but in fact they did not choose to challenge the orders to round up and slaughter Jews. Indeed, they willingly share the news of what they are doing with their families & have candid photos taken when they are performing their duties. They hardly seem like unwilling parties. On the other hand, Goldhagen's single-minded focus on Germany and the eliminationist anti-semitism of the Germans seems too limited. After all, even setting aside the Eastern Europeans, the French certainly seem to have been eager participants. Wasn't this a function of French anti-semitism? If so, how can we say that German eliminationist anti-semitism was unique? Goldhagen has done a great service by refusing to absolve the "ordinary" German from guilt in the Holocaust, why absolve the rest of Europe? Moreover, there's a certain blithe assumption that modern Germany is fundamentally different from Nazi Germany and that such a thing could never happen again. One need only look at the current ethnic tensions in Germany and France to see that this assumption may be to hasty. Is it really that difficult to imagine France and Germany slaughtering their current immigrant Arab populations? I think not. These caveats aside, this is a terrific book, one that is fundamental to understanding the Holocaust. GRADE: A
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Summary: History and emotion
Review: This book raises important questions and goes a fair way in resolving them. However, there's too much emotion in it and it ends up sounding more like a rant at times than a serious history tome. It begins by tracing anti-Semitism in Germany, paying special attention to the 19th century and how that "intellectual" anti-Semitism flowed into the Nazi race-based anti-Semitism. It then looks at concerte examples, with much attention paid to police batallions. The actions of the police batallions is the closest the book comes to dealing with the question of what ordinary Germans (i.e., women, children, and those too old to be conscripted) knew about the Holocaust, other than a few passing references. One thing it does not do, though it comes close, is paint all Germans as evil hate-mongers, as other reviews state. Goldhagen goes to some lengths in the preface to counter this perception, but I suspect it falls on deaf ears.
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Summary: Extremely well written racist propoganda
Review: If this were written for any other culture people would be more up in arms. But since we are so open to painting all Germans as evil inhuman creatures, than books like this exist with very little to no opposition. To say that every German (think of that,not some, not many, EVERY GERMAN) was a willing participant to the Holocaust is an ignorant statement. It's as bad as stating that every Jew is responsible for the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It's thinking like this that has to stop. Racism with a doctorate, is still racism. In a day where anti-semetic behavior is immeditely caught and snuffed out. We should also be as watchful towards behavior against any other race, nationality, or religion.
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Summary: Socialism's willing executioners and the Wholecaust
Review: "Socialism's Willing Executioners : Ordinary socialists and the Wholecaust" would be a better title. Good book, but it should have included the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the People's Republic of China, with the horrid National Socialist German Workers' Party (the "socialist trio of atrocities") and its monstrous Holocaust. Perhaps the author can do additional volumes. The book asks "why did many regular German citizens assist the National Socialist German Workers' Party in committing atrocities?" The book says almost nothing about people in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (62 million killed) and in the People's Republic of China (35 million) and the fact that they both independently killed more people than did the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (21 million). Together, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the People's Republic of China, and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (the "socialist trio of atrocities") committed the worst atrocities of all time. Some people have wondered whether the book implies that Germans have a "bad culture" that causes atrocities. It would make more sense to wonder why the philosophy of socialism moves so many regular citizens of various countries to commit atrocities. Many books that explore the mindset of the National Socialist German Workers' Party inexplicably fail to compare the mindset of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the People's Republic of China and all the other examples of socialist atrocities. Even the media and people who review this book miss the whole issue and I often write about the omission. As the book stands now, the table of contents and the index avoid use of the phrase "National Socialist German Workers' Party" and substitute a hackneyed and misleading abbreviation. The subject "socialism" isn't even listed in the index, and the phrase "socialist movement" is cited to a single page. The pact between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the National Socialist German Workers' Party whereby the two socialist groups were allies in starting WWII and invading Poland (and where the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics killed more people in Poland than did the National Socialist German Workers' Party) is indexed as the "Soviet-German non-aggression pact" and cited to a single page.
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Summary: Extremely thought provoking
Review: Goldhagen has undoubtedly written a very controversial book. It is worth noting that his is the province of political science rather than history per se. As such he has developed a model for interpretation of the halocaust that is extremely thought provoking. Goldhagen paints a very dark picture of the psyche of the ordinary Germans of that era and the way they were manipulated by the Nazi regime. Keep in mind that his is a model, a device useful to glean understanding. Like any political science model it cannot and does not fit every individual and every anecdote. In a macro-sense, however, it is difficult to deny Goldhagen's premise. Goldhagen has done his research very thoroughly indeed and despite the extraordinary amount of legitimate scholarly debate that this book has generated, his descriptions and conclusions are easily verifiable from other sources. He takes shots at other scholars, Browning in particular, that were unnecessary and in fact the interpretations of Browning and Goldhagen are more similar than perhaps either scholar can see himself. This book is a stunning achievement and has done more to open the door to meaningful dialog, study, and debate than any other since perhaps Shirer's Rise and Fall. While a knowledgeable reader will find points for argument, the overall impression is that the book adds a new dimension to our understanding of a Germany that is no more, and of a German people that were only too well understood by a criminal regime. The book is definitely worth reading.
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Summary: like shooting straw men in a barrel
Review: On the one hand, I gotta give my man Dan some credit for taking a well-deserved shot at the Hun. His quivering hatred is sort of entertaining, for a while (after which I stopped reading.) In truth, you can't say enough bad.... But come on. A whole book (and, like, $13 of my dollars) to combat the specious claim that "ordinary Germans" were oblivious to the fate of the Jews (and a few million insignificant others, in this retelling)? One would have to be a Pabst-swilling, Wehrmacht medal-hording, German-American idiot to truly believe that claim. And are raving lunatics of that sort going to be swayed by the existence of an overtly anti-German pop Holocaust text-even one that seems to represent the extreme of its genre? In the end, if you can endure, don't notice, or even enjoy a lot of questionable scholarship, along with a tone and methodology I and most other people would describe as quasi-racist if applied to any nation other than the German, you will admit: a) Goldhagen succeeds in proving that Germany boasts many examples of anti-Semitic thought and deed in its history, b)that the German populace substantially knew what was going on in the death camps, c)that they aided and abetted. Word on the street is that Goldhagen is now preparing a blockbuster that seems to all but prove our world exists in a shape similar to that of a soccer ball, if it can be believed.
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Summary: but were they willing?
Review: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book has proved to be one of the most controversial written on the subject. Perhaps that's not surprising - Goldhagen labels hundreds of thousands of ordinary German's as murderers and assistants to genocide. The book is not going to appeal to neo-nazi's, Hitler apologists or those who believe that it was the few who perpetrated the genocide. But the real question is: does Goldhagen's argument and evidence stand up to scrutiny? The answer is perhaps yes and no. There is no shortage of evidence and compelling eye-witness and documentary accounts. His argument is strongly worded and thoroughly checked, but sometimes there are points when he simplifies or presents as fact something which is clearly an opinion, and one that is not backed up. Goldhagen does not really say anything that has not been said before, but he focuses on it when it has formerly been only part of the whole story - what enrages some is that he directly assigns blame. Martin Gilbert's 'the Holocaust' or Primo Levi's 'The Drowned and the Saved' or the writings of Rabbi Hugo Gryn are better argued and present similar cases but do not seek to accuse the ordinary German as a willing executioner. Therefore the issue that raises the hackles of those angry with this book comes down to 'willing'. had the book been called 'Hitler's Executioners' (which would not have been as contentious) then less wrath may have been provoked.
But is this book worth reading and taking seriously? In my opinion yes. The wealth of evidence cannot reasonably be denied, if it is read as a compendium of documentary evidence about the role of ordinary German's in the genocide then it is a valuable and vitally important book. It's more radical argument can be taken separately - an editorial on the news presented - and that is more open for those to deny or to oppose if they want.
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