http://www.shelfari.com/books/273508/... ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

Phenominal scholarship and absolute integrity.

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. ( )