Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional Research, extremely important topic
Review: This book was meticulously researched. Even for those who have deeply studied the Holocaust there is ample new material here, in particular about Germany's special killing squads (Einsatzkommandos). Goldhagen lucidly shows that German society, from all economic levels, was involved in the project to kill all Jews. The weakness in this book is that it does not cover Austrian emersion in the Final Solution. Those who are interested in this subject should also read John Weiss' Ideology of Death which is even better written.
Rating: 
Summary: an academic atrocity
Review: Mr. Shvartz below asserts that "The many reviewers who have criticized Dr. Goldhagen [sic] book are of three kinds: Simple anti-Semites, jealous historians, and young people not familiar with the holocaust." Perhaps that is true at Amazon, but it is not true elsewhere, as, among others, Rabbi Jacob Neusner has written an absolutely scathing review of this book, which he calls a "hysterical book, full of pseudo-scholarship and bad arguments, [which] calls into question the scholarly integrity of Harvard's doctorate."Basically, the problems with this book are two-fold: (1) Goldhagen doesn't explain why this "eliminationist" anti-Semitism took hold in Germany and not in the more anti-Semitic countries of Ukraine, Poland, and Russia, and (2) he doesn't explain (a) why the allegedly deep-seated, longstanding, virulent, and universal anti-Semitism of the Germans did not prevent Jews from flourishing in Germany in the 19th Century and early 20th Century or prevent Jews from adopting Germany as home base for world Jewry and (b) why the evil German tendency he alleges disappeared after the end of WWII. If you want to understand the phenomenon of Nazi anti-Semitism, read "Separation and Its Discontents" by Kevin MacDonald as well as general historical treatises discussing the unique situation of Germany circa 1933. The alleged "Dolchstoss" based on the fact that on all fronts German soldiers remained "im Felde unbesiegt", the conspiracy of the rest of Europe to blame Germany for the first war, the desperate economic conditions of the time, the danger posed by the leftist parties in Germany, the Jewish-led coup d'etat in Russia and its bloody aftermath, the wealth and power of Jews in Germany at the time, and the differing interests of Germans and gentiles in regard to the construction of German culture -- all these things combined to produce a very ahistorical anti-Semitism that could not have existed before the Emancipation and does not exist today. Goldhagen's historical references do not support his contention that Nazi anti-Semitism was something other than the product of unique circumstances. Norman Finkelstein makes some excellent points in his analysis of the book: "For all its social turbulence, modern Germany prior to Hitler witnessed only episodic spasms of anti-Jewish violence. Indeed, there was no equivalent of the riots that attended the Dreyfus Affair or the pogroms in Russia. If Germany was brimming with pathological anti-Semites, why did Jews so rarely suffer their wrath? Alas, Goldhagen only briefly touches on this -- for his thesis -- plainly pivotal question. He writes, 'As powerful and potentially violent as the anti-Semitism was... the state would not allow it to become the basis of collective social action of this sort. Wilhelmine Germany would not tolerate the organized violence for which the anti-Semites appeared to long.' (HWE, p. 72) Yet, why was the State immune to the pathological anti-Semitism infecting the German body-politic? Indeed, winning the 1893 election, the Conservative Party, which according to Goldhagen was 'thoroughly anti-Semitic', along with allied avowedly anti-Semitic parties, proved a force to reckon with in the State. (HWE, pp. 56, 74-6) Why did these violent anti-Semites 'not tolerate' anti-Semitic violence?" This sort of illogic is pervasive. In short, HWE is a very bad book. If you don't believe me, you can find Neusner's and Finkelstein's reviews on the internet.
Rating:
Summary: The truth is hard to swallow
Review: The many reviewers who have criticized Dr. Goldhagen book are of three kinds: Simple anti-Semites, jealous historians, and young people not familiar with the holocaust. In my comments, I'll respond to the latter two categories of reviwers. Goldhagen's description of mass ordinary German participation in the torture and murder of Jews may not be a new finding, but it has never been presented in such a detailed, systematic, and documented manner. I was born and raised in Palestine (pre Israel). During the war years, survivors reached Palestine (after escaping the British blockade) and told their stories. Everybody in Palestine at that time (I remember very well)new about the mass murders, torture, gas chambers, etc. A few of the survivors wrote books about their experiences, I still have a few of them. Unfortunately, all these books were written in Hebrew, non translated to English. After reading Hitler's Willing Executioners I read again the above old books (dated 1943-46). Without exception, these survivors tell about the unbelievable cruelty of most ordinary Germans. Some Germans silentely objected to the mass murders, and they are given credit for it. The only possible factor that Goldhagen did not emphasize is greed. German soldiers and civilians who occupied Poland had a free hand in taking away everything that live or dead Jews had, and they used this privilage to the max. In a related matter, many have criticized Goldhagen for not mentioning the non German killers of Jews from the Baltic states and the Balkans. Yes, they were all murderers, but this is a topic for another book.
Rating: 
Summary: Provoking
Review: Goldhagen describes the camp system in Nazi Germany. Apparently as the number of available spots in camps rose so did persecution. The Jews were the main victims. The system itself grew to enormous proportions. It must have employed many thousands of ordinary Germans. There is in Germany, as in most of Europe, a history of anti-Semitism. Are those thousands of ordinary anti-Semites somehow comparable to the war criminals executed after the Nuermberg trial? And if they are - if say the entire nation of Germany was infected with a "virulent anti-Semitism" - what does it mean now? Have they been cured? Was it only in Germany? If what Goldhagen has written is true, then certainly Judaism is doomed.
Rating:
Summary: Goldhagen = Goebbels
Review: Daniel Goldhagen's book has already been exposed as being a collection of misquotes of historical data and outright fabrication. He seems to have no real knowledge of the tragic events that comprised the Holocaust. Since it is well known that the vast majority of executioners were Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Ukrainian, his book willfully lies in its "history." If there were any truth or justice in the world, Goldhagen would be the one deserving the epithet "revisionist historian."
Rating:
Summary: DRY RESEARCH ILLUMINATES DIFFICULT SUBJECT
Review: Judging by the 80 mixed reviews below, "Hitler's Willing Executioners" stirred things up and offended a few people. It is a controversial book ... which is a Good Thing. No one can deny, Adolf Hitler built the Third Reich on a series of big lies. So then trying to squeeze truth out of the records of people living under a regime steeped in such an ethos could not have been an easy task. Be that as it may, reading "Hitler's Willing Executioners" is work for the reader but worth the effort. Honestly, as a lazy reader I had to deduct one star for this book's unavoidable dryness. In this sense, I am inclined to ironically compare Goldhagen's book with a much less well known, highly detailed and referenced memoir: "Commandant of Auschwitz," the autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (The World Publishing Co., Ohio 1959, 279 pp). Permitted to write this book prior to his execution in Poland, Hoess clearly states his motive in writing his autobiography was to set the record straight, take responsibilities for " ... on orders received from Himmler ... the gassing of two million persons ... ," and to make clear who or what he was. Repeating Hoess' closing words: "... Let the public continue to regard me as the bloodthirsty beast, the cruel sadist, and mass murderer; for the masses could never imagine the commandant of Auschwitz in any other light. They could never understand that he too had a heart and that he was not evil." However, what corroborates Goldhagens characterization of Hitler's "average" willing executioner are the several pages of complaints that Hoess writes about his subordinates. It was these people who Goldhagen wrote about. With respect to their character, values and motivations Goldhagen and Hoess are in complete agreement. How about that! I suppose what distressed contemporary Germans and their sympathizers most about "Hitler's Willing Executioners" was what Goldhagen uncovered and describes between pages 379 and 381: there is no documentable evidence or records that anyone was punished for refusing to follow an order to murder innocent civilians. According to this research, none of the surviving excutioners claimed to have even heard of anyone being so much as incarcerated for refusing to obey an order to kill civilians. This revelation is offensive to post-World War II German mythologist because it is their final, classical excuse and rationalization for the ordinary volk who participated in the murder of innocents. In this context, at least Rudolph Hoess took a loftier position by accepting responsibility for carrying out his orders from Himmler. At least Hoess admitted in writing that he deserved to be hanged for his crimes! Goldhagen's book is not suitable for people accustomed to living in denial. However for those seeking a better understanding, "Hitler's Willing Executioners" attempts to explain how civilized people can allow themselves to so very easily become uncivilized.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading if you ask me
Review: Goldhagen's book may be presented in a lot less than perfect writing style, but as an average sophomore student in H.S, I still found the book to be highly readable. The literary complications were worth going through to get to the (well at least for me) enlightening information on this subject. This book has satisfied my curiousity about how a tragedy like the holocaust could happen. Also,in no way did I interpret Goldhagen's views to be condemning or placing permanent guilt or blame on Germans or Germany as a whole, past or present. The book just gives an explanation on how so many people, ordinary people, could do such unordinary things.
Rating: 
Summary: A Brilliant Illustrative Work on Racism
Review: Mr. Goldhagen's thesis in Hitler's Willing Executioners is that it was Germans---specifically not the Nazis nor the SS---who were responsible for the holocaust. Apparently, too many ignorant people can't see any difference between Nazism and Communism-so it is essential to rehabilitate the word 'Nazi'. Mr. Goldhagen's statement of his thesis is that "ordinary Germans" (his words) were the perpetuators of the Holocaust. In otherwords, "ordinary Germans" are evil. Apparently, genetically evil-how else can we define "German"? People who share significant and noticable genetic traits are called "races". Mr. Goldhagen makes the point very clearly that anyone who could have participated in the Holocaust is subhuman. So, then, I conclude that Germans are a subhuman race, which really doesn't have the right to live on the same planet as the rest of us. Mr. Goldhagen declares that his thesis is wholy "new to the scholarly literature". I don't know about you, but it seems to me that it is an old idea, a very old idea. Overall, Hitler's Willing Executioners is the most instructive work about the nature of Nazism, Racism, and just plain evil that I have ever read. It doesn't, however, contain much accurate information about the German people.
Rating:
Summary: Unreadable, Illogical
Review: Extremely turgid prose. Virtually unreadable. The logical leaps he makes would flunk a freshman logic course. The kind of book pseudo intellectuals will cite as authoritative when it's really just incomprehensible.
Rating:
Summary: Look at the sources
Review: This book is a true historians nightmare. Goldhagen is a political scientist, not a historian and this is quite evident. His sources are twisted to fit his point. Now I might be called an anti-semetic for this point of view, but, Goldhagen's book plays on the psychological need for a compact answer to the world's complex problems. There are many reasons for the Holocaust, and I believe that just blaming the German people as a whole is wrong. If you want to argue with my point of view, I just have to say one thing. Read all of his sources, and then ask yourself if what he did was justified to the books he referenced.
|
