NP Willing Executioners?

[Otto]

jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> Otto, would you care to explain what you believe Goldhagen's argument 
> to be, or what you think the wrong conclusion is?
>
> As I understand it, Goldhagen's thesis is that "ordinary" Germans 
> supported, and in many instances were active and willing accomplices 
> in, the persecution and murder of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Would this implicitness justify a whole book?

Goldhagen says that "during the nazi-era there were people living in 
Germany ruled/influenced by ideas which let many of them become willing 
and unconsidered <se?lp=ende&p=/Mn4k.&search=unconsidered> mass 
murderers and torturers".*(533)*

I cannot recall the right numbers but I think I remember having read 
somewhere in the book that it weren't as many as one would expect, but, 
on the other hand, it could have been, let's say, one million totally 
different Germans under the same regime and the "effect" (the Holocaust) 
would have been the same. I think this is the most "thrilling" part of 
his findings, which at the same time has been widely misunderstood and 
misinterpreted, especially in Germany. It doesn't mean that the majority 
knew that the Jews were killed in the death camps in the east, but it 
means that another, totally coincidental chosen group of other Germans 
would have done the same at Auschwitz and elsewhere if being ordered to 
do so. This is true in my opinion. But I haven't read Goldhagen that 
way, as Bekah has put it, "that all Germans knew and basically supported 
what was going on."

Goldhagen doesn't say "that all Germans knew and basically supported 
what was going on" anywhere in that book. The wrong conclusion out of 
this misinterpretation is Joel's condemnation of the country & its 
population as a whole. Goldhagen doesn't say so and rejects this in his 
preface to the German edition explicitly.

I think that Goldhagen is wrong when he says that the persecution and 
the murder of the Jews was the "central element" of the nazi era, "not 
because of the horror that we feel in looking back but because of its 
significance for the Germans of those time."*(16)* This is were I 
disagree. During the war the Holocaust only was of significance to those 
who knew of it, who were actively part of it, and this group was 
relatively small, as Goldhagen says (and those 'elect' were mostly 
silent about it). The "central element" for the overwhelming majority of 
the ordinary preterite Germans during the nazi era was undoubtedly the war.

I don't loathe the book, read it with great interest and I think 
Goldhagen did a great work getting through all those sources & telling 
us younger Germans (again, but this lesson has to be repeated every once 
in a while) that many of our good grandfathers weren't as good & brave 
in the war as they've made us believe they were. Looking back of course 
the Holocaust is the central element of the nazi-era which is why I like 
his book because it has deepened my knowledge about the Shoah.

What Goldhagen has delivered is a pretty good counter-argument to all 
those Germans who want to "forget" the Holocaust because it was 
something done "only" by "the Nazis," not by the "Germans" (as they say).

Otto

** my own re-translations from the German text.

>
> best
>
>> Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:18:14 +0200
>> From: Otto <ottosell@[omitted]>
>> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>> Subject: Re: NP Willing Executioners?
>>
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Note that it's not been Goldhagen's original argument. It's just the
>> wrong conclusion some people drew out of it.
>>
>> jbor@[omitted] wrote:
>>
>> > The argument below, logically extended, would likewise condemn all
>> > Americans for the atrocities committed (against Native Americans and
>> > African Americans; in South-East Asia, Iraq, wherever else) by their
>> > elected American Reichs. Wouldn't it?
>> >
>> > Not agreeing with the argument, just questioning the logic.
>> >
>> > best
>> >
>> >
>> >> From: "Joel Katz" <mittelwerk@[omitted]>
>> >> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>> >> Subject: Re: exhumed book from nazi slut
>> >> Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:24:19 -0400
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> [...] the goldhagen book of a few years back ('hitler's willing
>> >> executioners'), as well as common sense, paints a picture of general
>> >> acquiescence and limited participation among the teutonic populace.
>> >> also
>> >> check out klaus thewelheit's two volume 'male fantasies,' on the
>> >> widespread
>> >> pop-cultural support for murderous anti-semitism and slavophobia.  
>> so,
>> >> exceptionalist anecdotes aside, when we speak of nazis of that 
>> time we
>> >> should indeed speak of germans as a whole.  and reserve our pity for
>> >> those
>> >> who deserve it.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> [...]
>> >> >
>> >> >Joel Katz wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >>http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0533,tuhusdubr,66877,10.html
>> >> >>
>> >> >>as ben hecht said:  they should have walled in the whole country
>> >> and let
>> >> >>them feed on themselves.
>> >> >
>> >
>

		
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