Language:
English
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte
Angaben zur Quelle:
26 (1997) 345-353
Keywords:
Arendt, Hannah,
;
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
Abstract:
A paper presented at an international conference on "Mirroring Germany", held at Tel-Aviv University, May 1997. Contrasts Arendt's and Goldhagen's analyses of the Holocaust: the former dissociates it altogether from Germany and attributes it to the destruction of culture in modern mass society, which leads to a bureaucratic totalitarianism - a universal possibility; the latter blames the German national character, which he considers radically different from that of other nations. As Arendt reacts to the postwar trend to pillory Germany, Goldhagen reacts to those historians who, in her wake, universalize the Holocaust and whose complex analyses seem to exculpate Germany. Both give extreme explanations for an extreme phenomenon.
Note:
Appeared also in his "In Times of Crisis" (2001).
URL:
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