NP Willing Executioners?

[Joel Katz]

of course otto, who is rational (and german) generally defends goldhagen's 
thesis -- while a whole cadre of mos on this list rush forth to defend 
shades of genocide.

i don't even understand the problem:  clearly, the best scholars of 
anti-semitism, from adorno to thewleit, have all insisted on the centrality 
of killing jews as a functional element of the german psyche and german 
national identity.  it is what made german fascism operational.




>From: Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: NP Willing Executioners?
>Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 05:43:53 +0200
>
>jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
>>It isn't a numbers game at all. Goldhagen is saying is that, had they 
>>known about it, "ordinary" Germans of the time, and he means all of them, 
>>would have applauded and assisted in the persecution and murder of the 
>>Jews, just the same as those who were carrying out the killings. His 
>>overarching thesis is that anti-Semitism was a "cognitive map" shared by 
>>all Germans at the time. He's proffering a racial explanation, offering a 
>>simple and simplistic cause and effect hypothesis: the Shoah happened 
>>because *all* Germans were racially and culturally predisposed to 
>>exterminationist anti-Semitism.
>>
>>It's not correct.
>>
>>best
>>
>Sorry, I cannot recall having read in the book that "had they known about 
>it, "ordinary" Germans of the time, and he means all of them, would have 
>applauded and assisted in the persecution and murder of the Jews, just the 
>same as those who were carrying out the killings."
>
>If he indeed says so of course he's wrong because this would be nonsense. 
>Nobody would be able to prove such an assertion. But I remember having read 
>in the book that Hitler and the Nazis "activated" the widespread latent 
>anti-Semitism in the German population (which is still there btw, but more 
>in the form of a general ethnophobia) for their purposes, and this isn't 
>wrong historically.
>
>It's an interesting book, it sparked lively discussions when it first came 
>out, especially among those who hadn't read it.
>
>I've found more parts and statements in it to agree to than to disagree. 
>Goldhagen's conclusion that a different group of Germans would have done 
>the same under the same circumstances doesn't mean that *all* Germans, as 
>you've put it, "had they known about it, would have applauded and assisted 
>in the persecution and murder of the Jews, just the same as those who were 
>carrying out the killings." I don't think that he says so and indeed it 
>wouldn't be correct.
>
>Otto
>
>
>
>
>
>
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