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Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
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Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

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88784,041 (3.46)19
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This is a very easy book to read and understand. Borrowing now from the Introduction, the author's goal is to "understand the mind-set of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans who became genocidal killers...To explain why the Holocaust occurred, to explain how it could occur...." Toward that end he undertakes "reconceiving three subjects: the perpetrators of the Holocaust, German antisemitism, and the nature of German society during the Nazi period....Explaining why the Holocaust occurred requires a radical revision of what has until now been written. This book is that revision." The author discusses "German antisemitism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries [and] ... demonstrates the development in Germany well before the Nazis came to power of a virulent and 'eliminationist' variant of antisemitism." He "explores further ... eliminationist antisemitism's capacity to move the Nazi leadership, the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and the German people to assent and, in their respective ways, to contribute to the eliminationist program."
In my opinion, anyone who can read should read this book, for its different and more thorough view of the subject. ( )
Karlus | May 4, 2008 |  
Incinderary treatment of German universal culpability in the Holocaust, subject to withering criticism by historical experts on both sides of the Atlantic. Author, a sociologist by training, was competing with Chris Browning to access the records of Re.-Polizeibatailon 101, but lost that race (see Ordinary Men, Browning's work) and wrote this book instead.
Certain aspects of Goldhagen's thesis, however, seem uniquely positioned to explain the endurance and lethality of the Hitlerreich, so the work remains an important contribution to literature on the Third Reich. ( )
davrich | Jun 2, 2007 | 2 vote
Phenominal scholarship and absolute integrity.
mtsinai | Apr 29, 2007 |  
It is sometimes so easy to forget or ignore the fact that anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in Europe, making it so simple for the Holocaust to occur. This is an excellent explination and look into the minds of those willing to help or turn a blind eye to the execution of so many. ( )
kaelirenee | Mar 16, 2007 |  
Painful reminder that the Nazis tapped into populist mainstream views of Jews that was common throughout Europe and the USA but which quietly faded post war to the margins, perhaps in proportion to the decline in church attendance! Now Revelations Evangelism are pro Jews because of end time visions so stoking the flames of hate in the middle east and Africa ( )
ablueidol | Nov 5, 2006 |  
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Amazon.com (ISBN 0349107866, Paperback)

In a work that is as authoritative as it is explosive, Goldhagen forces us to revisit and reconsider our understanding of the Holocaust and its perpetrators, demanding a fundamental revision in our thinking of the years between 1933-1945. Drawing principally on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen marshals new, disquieting primary evidence that explains why, when Hitler conceived of the "final solution" he was able to enlist vast numbers of willing Germans to carry it out. A book sure to provoke new discussion and intense debate.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400)

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