Willing Executioners?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Ruth Bettina Birn's review of Goldhagen's book was originally published 
in the _Historical Journal_ 40.1, 1997,  pp. 195-215. I cited her 
review, not the website.

It should also have been noted that after Birn's review was published 
Goldhagen threatened legal action against her.

http://www.h-net.org/~german/discuss/goldhagen/birn.html

Apart from the original poster who deferred to Goldhagen's thesis to 
claim that

> 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.
> [...]
> >>as ben hecht said:  they should have walled in the whole country and 
> let
> >>them feed on themselves

it seems that there is general agreement that not all nor most nor the 
majority of Germans were responsible for the Holocaust, and that not 
all nor most nor the majority of Germans were racially and culturally 
predisposed to exterminationist anti-Semitism. Whether Goldhagen's book 
actually makes these arguments, either explicitly or implicitly, it's 
the arguments themselves which are incorrect. It might be an idea for 
those who believe that Goldhagen's book is saying something other than 
these things to explain what they think that is. It certainly hasn't 
been made clear to this point.

Meanwhile, on 24/09/2005 jbor wrote:

> And, what of Pynchon's depictions of "ordinary" Germans and human 
> psychology in _GR_ w/r/t Goldhagen's "cognitive model" theory?

best

On 27/09/2005, at 6:04 AM, davemarc wrote:

> jbor quotes:
>
>> http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/crazygoldie/BIRN.html
>
> ***
>
> Those of us who continue to be concerned about Holocaust 
> revisionism/denial
> might be
> interested in perusing the rest of this www.vho.org website cited in
> jbor's post.