Language:
English
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Central European History
Angaben zur Quelle:
30,2 (1997) 295-307
Keywords:
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Antisemitism History 1933-1945
Abstract:
Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners", in which he ascribed "eliminationist antisemitism" to all of German culture and declared this antisemitism to be responsible for the Holocaust, was dismissed by most of the academic world. Toward the end of 1996, the reception of the book was somewhat more positive, especially in Germany. Contends that Goldhagen deserved most of the criticism vaunted against his book. Asserts that German antisemitism was not very different from that in other countries; that not only Germans participated in the genocide; that pre-Hitler Germany did not know such a hatred for the Jews; that the pattern of the Nazi murderers' behavior toward victims other than Jews was not very different from their behavior toward Jews; and that the historian must not generalize from the behavior of the Nazis to the entire German people. States that the book has some merits: its style is passionate and its descriptions are vivid. But it contains many unsubstantiated claims and not much that is new. Its intention is to shock rather than to make a contribution to the writing of history.
Note:
On Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, "Hitler's Willing Executioners; Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" (1996).
,
Appeared in Spanish in "Los alemanes, el Holocausto y la culpa colectiva" (1999) 73-88.
DOI:
10.1017/S0008938900014059
URL:
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