Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

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Daniel Goldhagen re-visits a question which history has treated as settled, and his research leads him to the inescapble conclusion that none of the answers holds true. That question is: How could the Holocaust happen? His response is an exploration of German society and its ingrained anti-semitism that demands a fundamental revision of our thinking about the years 1933-1945. The author marshals fresh, primary evidence - including extensive testimony from the actual perpetrators - to show that the killers were ordinary Germans who were not compelled to act as they did (they knew they could refuse without retribution) yet they killed willingly and zealously.

Review

** 'A monumental achievement. ― SUNDAY TIMES

** 'Powerful and well-researched... this book stimulates thought... It is a serious book written by a gifted scholar. ― TLS

** 'As stomach churning in its grueseome detail as it is mind-blowing for its radical façade stripping of one of the ghastliest episodes of human history. ― DAILY MAIL

** 'There is enough material here to disturb the human race to the end of time. ― ROBERT KEE

About the Author

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is Associate Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University and an Associate of Harvard's Minda de Gunzberg Centre for European Studies. He was awarded Germany's Democracy Prize for HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS.

Review:

4.4 out of 5

88.89% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling

C.S. · 30 July 2014

It's sad to see this book misrepresented in so many reviews here. Goldhagen does not say that Germans are inherently racist or antisemitic. He does not say - indeed, he explicitly rejects the idea - that they share 'collective responsibility' for the Holocaust. He does not claim that the Jews were the Nazis' only victims, but he does say - backed up by ample evidence - that the Jews were persecuted with a frenzied and brutal zeal that was unmatched. He does not claim that every German was complicit, although he does show that opposition to anti-Jewish laws was expressed only by a minority, even in private. He does not claim that antisemitism did not exist elsewhere, nor that the Holocaust couldn't have happened in any other countries had a Hitlerian government got into power.His basic thesis is repeated so often in the text that it is hard to see how any reader could miss it. It is that the Holocaust was not the work of a relatively small group of people who were either ideologically crazed or 'only following orders'. The evidence he provides for this is, in my view, incontrovertible. He does not study the actions of hardened SS thugs or longtime Nazi party members, but instead looks at massacres committed by groups whose members were drawn from a cross-section of German society. He looks at torture and murder carried out by people who gladly volunteered for these duties. He looks at the savagery of people who were not following orders and who, indeed, sometimes disobeyed orders to carry on killing.If soldiers, camp guards and - in many cases - civilians were not being forced to engage in excessive violence against Jews then the obvious explanation is that they wanted to engage in excessive violence against Jews. Why? Because a combination of a longstanding antisemitic culture and a fanatically antisemitic government had convinced very large numbers of them that antisemitic fantasies were the truth.The virtual extermination of the Jews in Europe was a massive enterprise of which most Germans were aware and huge numbers were actively involved. Goldhagen's thesis - that the perpetrators of the Holocaust believed in what they were doing - should not be controversial. It is Occam's Razor. Other explanations might be more forgiving, but they do not stand up against the facts.

5.0 out of 5 stars Passed History

L.R. · 14 October 2024

I bought this for history class and got a good grade so I think it was good.

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy but flawed...

C.B. · 3 October 2010

This book has been described as one of the most important books ever written on the Holocaust, and I'd have to agree with that statement, but not necessarily because I agree with everything written here, more for that debate it has ignited.Goldhagen basically sets out to defuse the myth that the majority of Germans had no culpability as regards the Holocaust, did not know about it, did not participate in it and could not have stopped it. He argues, in many places quite convincingly, that it was impossible for the majority of Germans not to have had at the very least a vague idea of what was going on; that German society had been for many years before the Nazis came to power permeated by an 'eliminationist antisemitism' that advocated exterminating the Jews; that had Germans shown any disgust or opposition to the initial treatment the Jews received, after Kristellnacht, for example, before the Holocaust began properly, it could have been stopped, just as the Nazis backed down over the Euthanasia program or the hostility to the Church. He also argues against the idea that there would have been repercussions for refusing to participate, and highlights the fact that there was almost no instances of anyone being sent to a concentration camp or suffering in any way for refusing to kill.However, I must point out this is analytical history, theoretical history - if one if looking for a narrative history, this is not the book. You can tell this book began as a PhD thesis - it very much reads like one. Many reviewers have complained about the dry and excessively academic style - but perhaps that is a failing of publicity, not the book. You cannot expect academic theses to read like popular history, and if this book has been marketed at the 'average reader', ie. not historians, that's hardly a failing of the author.It's a worthy book, and worth persevering with, if only for the very interesting questions it raises about just how much one can extend the 'guilt' of the Holocaust to Germany as a whole, and not just the Nazis. After all, there were only somewhere in the region of 8 million Nazi Party members, and many millions more 'ordinary Germans'. This is definitely not the final word in this debate, but it must receive praise for igniting it and highlighting it, if nothing else.

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking

A.C. · 1 January 2024

Thought provoking and intriguing book. Covers a lesser studied part of the Holocaust. Will be valuable for teaching my secondary school students.

Excellent

A.C. · 7 December 2019

Excellent book, must read

The print is tiny and on most pages and also appears for fuzzy/blurred.

I.M. · 1 June 2024

The print is tiny and on most pages and also appears for fuzzy/blurred.Such a pity, because it seems like a very interesting subject.

A must read

R. · 19 February 2017

Very insightfulad to how ordinary people become killing machines through coercion.

Erudite Thesis Of German Complicity In The Holocaust!

B.L. · 11 December 2000

In one of the most controversial and sensational books published in the last decade, Harvard professor Daniel Goldhagen forwards a provocative thesis regarding the culpability of the German people at large for the execution of the Holocaust. In a massively documented, carefully argued, and enormously researched effort that was in fact culled from his doctoral dissertation on the same subject, the author weaves together a stunning indictment of millions of Germans who, through their active participation and willing consent, helped in the achievement of the Nazis' so-called "Final Solution". However, while this is truly a fascinating and often spellbinding argument, in the end Goldhagen fails to sustain the argument with enough evidence to prove the German people were active, willing, and even enthusiastic executioners of its Jewish citizens.This is neither to deny the power of Goldhagen's narrative nor to deny that this is a work of great historical importance, being quite as authoritatively written and documented as it is, and based on the evidence he provides. Nor is it to deny that "Hitler's Willing Executioners" is a titanic work that has fundamentally changed the reading public's perception of both the Holocaust itself and of the German people during the reign of the Nazi regime. However, while there is no denying this or the fact that Goldhagen reaches conclusions that are quite uncompromising and very well substantiated, I believe that ultimately he failed to provide adequate actual evidence that the German people, as racist and as predisposed as they might be toward scapegoating, vilifying, and victimizing the Jews among them, actually were actively aware and consciously and deliberately and voluntarily involved in the systematic murder of the Jewish population in the Holocaust.One of the primary problems that is evident in this work is the fact that most of the European Jews exterminated were in fact not German. So too, the vast majority of the extermination camps were located in other countries, especially in Poland. Moreover, it does not appear that the movement toward the systematic campaign of murder of either the German Jews or their European brethren was as organized or as well thought-through as Goldhagen maintains. Other scholars, many of them Jewish themselves (as is Goldhagen) argue that the Holocaust appears to have evolved from a number of factors, including the lack of coherent and cohesive control over the Nazi bureaucracy, especially in conquered territories. What transpired seems as much the consequence of exigent circumstance (lack of food, potable water, and lack of space to house refugees) as it was the deliberate decision to systematic murder the Jews. This isn't to suggest that the Nazis were intending to spare either the German Jews or the indigenous Jewish population in the conquered areas, but rather that they originally intended to starve and work them to death, in concert with teir general plans to so use all the so-called "sub-humans" that they considered the subjugated populations of the Eastern Front to be. As secretive as the Nazis were, much of what happened did in fact appear to occur without a great deal of publicity or public knowledge. To my mind, Goldhagen never successfully counters this fact with evidence showing the German people at large knew what was going on, or that they participated in its execution.While I consider this a monumental work of tremendous importance, I do not believe Goldhagen has proven his thesis that the German people at large were active and willing participants in the Holocaust here. What he has accomplished, however, is to provide a well-documented roadmap to further meaningful research regarding this issue. My own suspicion is that we will find that the German people...did in fact succumb to a disturbing degree to the rampant racism prevalent in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, they were also guilty of moral indifference, a striking self-interested disinterest in what was happening around them to non-Aryan Germans, and a craven cowardice that resulted in an "every creep for himself" attitude that turned a deaf ear to all the horrors transpiring around them. They may not have been the willing executioners Goldhagen claims them to be, but they certainly were un-indicted co-conspirators in the horrific deliberate campaign to disenfranchise and victimize the Jews. I recommend this book to anyone who is a serious student of the Holocaust, and to the general public as an immensely educational book.

Five Stars

S. · 13 January 2018

Great service form Dealstar. Very happy.

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Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Name: Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
Brand: Abacus
SKU: K0349107866
Price: 9.84 BHD
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Rating: 4.5 (9 reviews)

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