Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust Essay -- Essays Papers

modal(a) Germans and the Holocaust Synopsis Hitlers Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Ger some(prenominal) during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that biography has come to treat as sett direct, and his researches have led him to the inescapable polish that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to file that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were non primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and kill Jews both willingly and zealously. They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose defunctness was not only necessary but also just.1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German a nti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared involve that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to operate wide numbers of Germans to carry it out.About the Author - Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is henchman Professor of G e trulywherenment and Social Studies at Harvard University and an Associate of Harvards Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. His doctoral dissertation, which is the basis for his book Hitlers Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, was awarded the American policy-making Science Associations 1994 Gabriel A. Almond Award for the best dissertation in the subject field of comparative politics.2Summary - For the extermination of the Jews to occur, four principal things were necessary1. The Nazis - that is, the leadership, specifically Hitler - had to decide to undertake the extermination. 2. They had to gain control over the Jews, namely over the territory in which they resided. 3. They had to organize the extermination and devote to it sufficient resources. 4. They had to begin a large number of people to carry out the killings.The vast literature on Nazism and the Holocaust treats in great prescience the first three elements, the focus of this book, is t... ...lity and having judged the mass annihilation of Jews to be right, did not want to say no.It is my belief that the author presents a very controversial view of the causes and implementation of the Holocaust. The root of the controversy is his contention that the German people, as a society, are responsible for the attempted extermination of the Jews. concord to Mr. Goldhagen, in the eyes of the Germans, the Jews as nothing more than a pubic louse that must be removed in order to cure the ills of their nation. In the book Mr. Goldhagen has gone to great extents to prove his views. However, his theories will probably prevail a point of contention with historians for years to come.4 The brutality and abomination that is described throughout the book is, at times, overwhelming. To realize that one crowd of people can treat their fellow man with such hardheartedness and savagery in what we call a civilized world is nearly beyond comprehension. Notes1. Hitlers Willing Executioners, Book Jacket, 19962. Patterns of Prejudice, Erich Goldhagen, 1978, 12, No.1, 1-163. First Things, Richard John Neuhaus, distinguished/September 1996, 36-414. U.S. News & World Report, David Gergen, May 24, 1996