Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Paperback)

'[T]he perpetrators, "ordinary Germans," were animated by antisemitism by a particular type of antisemitism that led them to conclude that the Jews ought to die. The perpetrators' belief, their particular brand of antisemitism, though obviously not the sole source, was, I maintain, a most significant and indispensable source of the perpetrators' actions and must be at the center of any explanation of them. Simply put, the perpetrators, having consulted their own convictions and morality and having judged mass annihilation of Jews to be right, did not want to say "no.'

Goldhagen's arguments have, unsurprisingly, not gone unchallenged. His analysis is critisised for being naive in interpretation, and cynical in the use of sources, both primary and secondary. One of his foremost critics, Finkelstein, problematises the thesis in "A Nation on Trial - The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth" (USA: 1998), because it crosses the previously untransgressed line 'between holocaust scholarship - primarily a branch of European history - and holocaust literature - primarily a branch of Jewish studies', '[s]eeking to reconcile an ideologically loaded thesis with radically incompatible empirical findings'. Considerations of space limit this critique largely to Finkelstein's accusation that "HWE" is a '"Crazy" thesis'. His deconstruction can be schematised into fivefold analysis. First, misrepresentation of facts and data. For example, Goldhagen's implication that erection of anti-Semitic signs such as "Entry Forbidden to Jews" was widespread amongst Germans, and evident of their 'eliminationist intent', However, Finkelstein's referral to the source used by Goldhagen, Gellately's "The Gestapo and German Society", indicates that it was actually coordinated 'by local hotheads in the Nazi movement'. Second, rash assumptions are made throughout "HWE", based largely around Goldhagen's attempt to prove his eliminationist anti-Semitism theory, which is in turn a third criticism: monocausal explanation of the Holocaust. His argument that 'it was only in Germany that an openly and rabidly antisemitic movement came to power [...] that was bent upon turning antisemitic fantasy into state organized genocidal slaughter', is criticised by Finkelstein. He questions why such a force did not come to power elsewhere, rubbishing arguments such as comparative uniqueness in Europe, or the economic depression as providing a satisfactory answer. Fourth, it is observed by Finkelstein that "HWE" is replete with contradictions. For example, Goldhagen appears to be unclear as to whether Hitler was central or peripheral, arguing first that Hitler's role was to 'unleash pent-up anitsemitic passion', but later that were it not for "Hitler's moral authority", the "vast majority of Germans would never have contemplated" Jewish genocide. Fifth, the text contains gross generalisations. Goldhagen argues that 37.4 per cent of the German population, 14m people, cast their vote for Hitler in July 1932, arguing that 'Hitler's virulent, lethal-sounding antisemitism did not at the very least deter Germans from throwing their support to him'. Finkelstein contests that he (a) ignores the rest, who did not vote for Hitler, and (b) if he had promised to unleash their anti-Semitism, they should be voting for him because, not despite of it. Further, Finkelstein argues that "HWE" 'is not intrinsically racist', as has been argued by other critics and refuted by Goldhagen:

'My book never invokes or even hints at any ethnic, racial, or biological notion of Germans; it, in no sense, posits anything about some eternal German "national character", it is, in no sense about any essential, unchangeable psychological dispositions of German. All of these are inventions of critics like Bartov who claim that mine is an essentailist view of Germans and that I maintain that Germans acted as they did because of "what they [were]".

In an Afterword to the 1997 Abacus Edition of "HWE", Goldhagen further refutes criticism:

'[A]rticles by both journalists and academics consisted almost wholly of denunciations and misrepresentations of the book's contents, including that I was charging Germans with "collective guilt," that the book's arguments attributes to Germans an unchanging "national character," that it impermissibly generalizes about Germans of the time, and that it puts forward a monocausal explanation of the Holocaust. The critics presented no serious argument and no evidence to support their contentions on these and other points. They did not do so because such arguments and evidence do not exist'.

The fundamentally important point, over and above whether Goldhagen is right or wrong, is that, however contentious his conclusions, he has regenerated the discussion of one of the most difficult aspects of the contemporary period - due to the mass public consumption of "HWE", it has moved the debate from academia into a joint-venture with 'parlour discussion'. However, a disturbing side effect is that, whereas Goldhagen may indeed have been sensationalising the Holocaust, there are those who appear to be 'jumping on the bandwagon' and using the debate for profit, both commercially and in their (academic) career.

Because antisemitism was so integral to the psyche of ordinary Germans, Nazi policy unleashed their latent desire to exterminate the Jews, which they did with willingness and enthusiasm. Although most Germans would never have consciously considered acting in this way before the Nazis ascended to power, all the latter effectively had to do was provide the spark which then produced the fire.

To back this up the author first of all provides us with evidence that antisemitism was deeply ingrained in German society. Next, he tries to demonstrate that the perpetrators of the Nazi holocaust were basically just typical Germans (ie they were a fairly representative sample of the whole German population). Furthermore, they willingly participated in atrocities against the Jews even though they could have avoided doing so.

From these postulations he infers that, if placed in their shoes, the average German would have behaved in exactly the same way as they did.

It's all seems so simple doesn't it?
Too simplistic by far in my view.

Even if we accept Goldhagen's figures for the actual number of German perpetrators, they are still a small minority of the total population. His assertion that the rest would undoubtedly have behaved in a similar manner because they were equally imbued with antisemitism is dubious to say the least.

And does this imply that members of other nationalities would not have acted the same way? Or that Germans never acted with equal cruelty against their non-Jewish victims?

I don't think it could logically be claimed that non-Germans who wore the Nazi uniform were less cruel to the Jews than Germans were. Presumably Goldhagen would contend that this is because they were also highly antisemitic. But there's no shortage of evidence of excessively sadistic behaviour towards their fellow-Jews by Jewish police in the ghettos and Jewish kapos in the camps. Were these people Germans disguised as Jews? And are there really no examples of Germans acting with deliberately excessive brutality towards non-Jews? In my experience they're quite easy to find. Try reading (for example) "Forgotten holocaust: the Poles under German occupation 1939-44" by Richard C Lukas or "Did the children cry?" by the same author....

How does German antisemitism explain Nazi genocides against disabled people, gypsies, homosexuals and of course, millions of Slavs, all of whom were being killed by the same Germans at the same time as the Jews? Isn't it just possible that antisemitism is only part of the story (just as Nazi policy towards the Jews was also just one part of a bigger picture)?

And although Goldhagen asserts that the Nazi holocaust of the Jews is the most shocking event of the 20th century, are there really no other examples of equal degrees of cruelty (or public culpability) in any of the 20th century's other genocides, whose total victims number in the tens of millions?

These are some of the questions which Goldhagen's unconvincing thesis leaves unanswered.

The arguments of the author are persuasive but the style is, at times, dense and difficult to read and I suspect that whole tracts of the PhD thesis, which is the basis for this book, have found their way into publication without editing. This is a pity because the lessons of the book are as relevant today, in a time when ethnic cleansing is part of the lexicon of European affairs, as they were after the end of World War 2. Making them more accessible would have enhanced the power of the book, as would have reducing the repetition of examples.