Rating: 
Summary: Hitler's Willing Executioners
Review: I read the book Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. It is a pretty good book. It is very descriptive about the Holocaust. This book is non-fiction. It includs many testimonies from the people fighting the Jews. It has a lot of opinions expressed. This book focusses mainly on the people who killed the Jews. Ordinary Germans killed them. Hitler set up Police Battalions and the SS. Nazi parties weren't the only people to destroy the Jews. Average Germans were willing to kill them because of an antisemitism that Jews were the enimies. The book is set up into parts. The book talks about antisemitism. It talks about the growing of eliminationists. It focusses on the lives of the perpitrators. It gets into the life in the camps. It tell both how the Jews felt and the actions of the Germans. It tells the thoughts and feelings of the ones who killed so many lives. It also includes notes in it. I liked this book because I learned so much about how the Nazi soldiers were able to get away with killing the Jews. This was the perfect Holocaust book for me to read.
Rating: 
Summary: unreadable
Review: this guy definitely makes an important point: that the germans were antisemites for 100 years before hitler, and wanted to kill the jews for 50 years before. i really wanted to get through it, but his writing style is unreadable. he insists on painstakingly defining every simple term he uses and the result is such slow going that one loses the thread of his argument, the momentuum just sags and falls. i gave up after 150 pages that should have been 30. the last straw was a para that definied 'ideals', 'intentions', and 'policies' and demonstrated in what order they usually occur, followed by another one that essentially said that the solutions to the 'jewish problem' resulted from trying to solve the 'jewish problem'. ive never thrown a book away but his one might kick it off.
Rating:
Summary: racist propaganda
Review: The cover of this book makes the author's intentions obvious, to permanently brand the German identity with guilt.Inside the covers, you will find much selective information that supports the author's thesis- but you won't find a sincerely objective effort to present the truth. One can't blame all the Muslims of the world for the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and neither can you blame ordinary Germans for everything that happened during WWII. How offensive that a personal vendetta against an entire people should be masked as academic research.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but fascinating
Review: Hitler's willing Executioners Immediately after the war it became apparent that Germany had committed unspeakable crimes. At attempt had been made to destroy the Jews and the Gypsies. The occupation of Poland had led to the cold blooded murder of large numbers of people simply because of their education and position in the country, millions more captured soldiers and civilians were murdered or starved to death. The response of most Germans who had lived through the war was to try to avoid responsibility for these actions. It was normal to suggest that they lived in a repressive totalitarian state and the murders were carried out by a narrow range of specialist agencies of that state such as the SS and the Gestapo. As time went by it became clear these excuses which had allowed large numbers of Germans to avoid criminal prosecution or to escape de-nazification were fabricated. The reality of the regime was that for most of the war Jews were not murdered in death camps by small numbers of fanatical racists using gas chambers. This was a later development. Rather the killing was by firing squad or by the use of carbon monoxide from motor fumes. Large numbers of Germans had participated in these killings rather than just a few. This book is an attempt to look at the question of the killing of Jews in the War and to try to establish the response to it by normal Germans. The methodology of the book is to examine the records of German police who were called up to form squads which were used to execute Jews in Russia. The police were not members of the SS or any elite squads just the normal run of the mill police. What the book finds is that none of those involved in the killing of women and children seem to have experienced the slightest qualm over what they did. In fact the book shows that the police involved did things like sending home pictures of them shooting women and children to their wives and children. The book is divided into two halves. The first part of the book contains the basic argument of the work that is supported by the police studies. The theory is that Germany in the 30's became attracted to "eliminationist anti Semitism". That is rather than just wanting to treat Jews as an inferior class, normal Germans wanted to get rid of them. The author discusses how wide spread was the phenomena in the early Nazi period of villages spontaneously posting signs about being Jew free, or that Jews were not welcome. The book has been widely critiqued on the basis that there is no real evidence to suggest that the hostility to Jews was at such a level that normal Germans were committed to their physical elimination. Rather the compelling evidence is that this came from the top. Despite that criticism the book is a fascinating portrait of the mechanics of genocide. The complete lack of scruple of the people researched in the second part of the part is amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Prove his Case
Review: This book should not be on any Holocaust scholar's list of books to read. He goes too far in claiming that the Holocaust occurred because all Germans are evil and were eager to kill people. While he uses information which disproves his case, he fails to account for why it disproves his case; in other words, he uses the information anyway, even extremely out of context. If you want a better work on perpetrator behavior, check out Christopher Browning. Leave this one off the list.
Rating:
Summary: Distasteful
Review: The main premis of this book has been completely discredited by any number of authorities on all sides. It is therefore nothing more than hate literature and should be treated as such.
Rating:
Summary: AnUnreadable and Not Very Useful Book
Review: Mr. Goldhagen does not say anything, and he takes 634 pages to do it. Of course, while digging through the heaps of meaningless big words, run-on sentences, and pointless chapters I may have missed something. I tried to read the book, but it was impossible. There were entire paragraphs of rhetorical questions and entire chapters of stating why others were wrong. I ended up attempting to skim through the work, and finding out nothing. Well, that's not true, exactly. He says a lot, but never actually gives us the objectives and motives of the Germans, which is what he sets out (he says so himself) to do. He states many givens and mind-numbingly, obnoxiously, and self-absorbedly (I coin that word if it is not already one - it is the only way to describe the book) fills the work with the longest words and sentences in the history of literature. He could have said everything he wanted to in a five-page pamphlet, and saved himself and us a lot of time and effort.
Rating: 
Summary: An opinion in search of evidence
Review: Goldhagen's book has numerous structural and contextual problems that, especially because of the book's wide acceptance, need to be addressed. This book is based on the author's doctoral dissertation and reads, for the most part, like an academic polemic. Stylistically the book is pedantic, self-important and turgid. The same points are repeated time and again. At times, however, the author abandons his academic stance, writes in a more popular style and indulges in graphic and emotional descriptions of cruelty and murder. For all the above reasons I found the book to be extremely difficult to read and wonder whether many of Godhagen's admirers or critics have read this book in its entirety. The above issues are problems of style, however, and do not necessarily detract from Goldhagen's central argument. His message is that the German people were involved in the holocaust "up to their eyeballs." The reason given is that the extraordinary anti-Semitism that had existed in Germany for hundreds of years gradually assumed both overt and convert eliminationist features. These "eliminationist" attitudes came to pervade German society, from the top to the bottom, and paved the way for the Nazi movement and Hitler's take-over. The Nazi's only gave structure to preexisting German hatred and the German public was not only aware of the atrocities but enthusiastically participated in the humiliation, torture and slaughter of six million Jews. Proof? The author presents abundant proof of vitriolic anti-Semitic literature both before and during the holocaust. He shows that many of the participants in certain death squads were simple, "ordinary" Germans who tortured and killed despite evidence that they could have avoided these duties without negative consequences to themselves. Simple extrapolation would suggest that most ordinary Germans, if called up for such duties, would have performed similarly. The author also presents evidence that Jews were treated worse that were other Nazi captives and explains the inefficiency of the Nazi use of Jewish workers in war industries as efforts to humiliate Jews by forcing them to do manual labor at the expense of the desperate war effort. He goes on the describe the directionless death marches at end of the war as the product of unauthorized cruelty by the German guards against their helpless Jewish victims. Indeed, the author claims that many of the guards, rather than desert in favor of their personal safety, chose to continue these pointless marches in order to exact the full measure of hatred against the Jews. Despite the author's voluminous research I don't think he has proved his point. Worse yet, the book leaves me with the impression that the author started with preconceived conception that he then set out to prove. To be certain it would be difficult to prove the author's contentions even if he were absolutely correct. There are just too many variables, data and conflicting testimony. To have a shot at proving his contention of specific German complicity it would be necessary to do careful comparative studies. This, the author admits, he is not attempting because it would be outside of the scope of his study[!]. He is afterall presenting evidence on specifically German attitudes and complicity. Still, it would have been helpful to compare the anti-Semitic attitudes of non-Germans and their participation in the holocaust. Was, for example, eliminationist anti-Semitism prevalent in Poland and the Ukraine? [it was] Were more Poles and Ukrainians members of death squads and guards at death camps than were Germans? Were they unnecessarily cruel? Might these same Poles and Ukrainians have avoided such duties by transferring to other units [combat units, for example]? How about Jewish Capos in the camps? Was their unnecessary brutality the product of eliminationist anit-Semitism? How does the hatred and brutality of the Jewish holocaust compare with other acts of genocide and mass slaughter? Comparative data? How about Hitler's murder of eight million non-Jews? At the beginning of his book Goldhagen describes the Jewish holocaust as "the most shocking event of the century." Shocking it was and is, but I think the author could have given at least passing mention to Stalin's murder of 20 million human beings. He doesn't even mention it. Is this a case of comparative genocides [my genocide is more important than your genocide] or is Goldhagen simply one of those misguided souls, very much like many people in Hitler's Germany, who didn't think it could actually happen or, worse, just couldn't be bothered?
Rating:
Summary: Goldhagens hatred of Germans obvious.
Review: I feel Mr Goldhagen has an anti-German agenda. After reading a good 90 % of his book I put it down due to sheer boredom at the constant repetition of the same so called "facts", and in a effort to be as emotional as possible the constant mention of "the women and children", in just about every line. Anybody,who has read anything about the holocaust knows that women and children were exterminated,but the constant use of this line in an attempt to provoke a hatred of the Germans became tiresome. I found the book repetitive,and I kept reading hoping to find "new facts"that he had uncovered,alas it did not happen. What I find naive in the extreme is the theory that historical papers and government documents can some how "tell" the thoughts and actions of a nationality.What garbage. The only way anybody, be it a historian,author or otherwise,can actually tell the pysche of a nation is to actually live there,and even then it will still take years and years.Therefore much of what Goldhagen states as "German psche" is pure conjecture and his opinion. Having spoken to family in Germany regarding the war,(most of the elderly males were in the army in France and Norway)none knew of the camps and the atrocities until years later.As regards the women that were left behind they were constantly bombarded with propaganda and were so busy trying to find food for children(as well as stay alive due to bombings)they never had a clue as to what was actually going on.And no,they had never heard of any camps until the end of the war. This is the problem with the theory put forward by Goldhagen,he has never lived under government controlled media,therefore he has no idea what its like (I have),therefore to state,that "they should have known" is ignorant in the extreme,secondly,he has not lived under a dictatorship,with the awful fear that is part of your daily life (I have),so to say from your comfortable chair in the USA protected by democratic laws,that they should have done something about it and since the population did not...therefore they are ALL guilty is wrong. No Mr Goldhagen,I think your bias clearly comes out in this book and the end was a foregone conclusion. There are a lot more books out there,with a more balanced approach and less personal bias coming through that I would rather buy.
Rating:
Summary: An Ax to Grind - Unreadable & Jargonistic
Review: I originally bought this book with the naive understanding that I would come to greater understanding of this enormous human tragedy. Instead I found myself plodding through (as I read it) Mr. Goldhagen's personal quest to demonize an entire people as intrinsically evil with a predispositon to perpretrate this crime. Mr. Goldhagens language was also a barrier, as he seems to have taken great pains to incorporate jargonisitc language at every possible juncture - Being a Harvard student I guess this isn't surprising - He must have scored 800 on his SAT Verbal and wants everyone to know it. Hardly a must read on the Holocaust - Its nothing more than personal venom with a catchy title masquerading in highly "academic" language.
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