Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
History and Memory; Studies in Representation of the Past
Angaben zur Quelle:
8,1 (1996) 88-108
Keywords:
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
National socialism Historiography
Abstract:
Supports Goldhagen's opinion on two points - that numerous ordinary Germans extensively participated in the mass murder of Jews, and that they exhibited a high degree of voluntarism in these actions - but criticizes his other contentions. States that Goldhagen's approach is monocausal (i.e. everything in the behavior of the German perpetrators may be explained by eliminationist antisemitism), and the Germans are depicted as a uniform mass. Goldhagen also ignores the situational factors in the perpetrators' behavior, e.g. the Nazi dictatorship. Examination of Jewish survivors' testimonies on the behavior and motives of German soldiers involved in the genocide, as well as on the behavior of non-German perpetrators, or the perpetrators' behavior toward non-Jewish victims, may negate Goldhagen's arguments. Concludes that oversimplified schemes, albeit seductively attractive, must not be applied to history.
Note:
On Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners; Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" (1996).
,
First published in German in "Die Zeit" (19 April 1996). Appeared in English also as "Ordinary men or ordinary Germans" in "Unwilling Germans? The Goldhagen Debate" (1998) 55-73; and in Spanish as "Los verdugos voluntarios de Daniel Goldhagen" in "Los alemanes, el Holocausto y la culpa colectiva" (1999) 115-135.
URL:
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