Hitler's Willing Executioners : Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Registered by novasoy of Louisville, Kentucky USA on 5/1/2004
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4 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by novasoy from Louisville, Kentucky USA on Saturday, May 1, 2004
goodwill book. It looks very interesting.

Journal Entry 2 by novasoy from Louisville, Kentucky USA on Saturday, June 12, 2004
I'm 180 pages into it, nearly halfway done, and at this point I can say the book is friggin' awesome. Goldhagen really challenges one's assumptions about the Holocaust and lays out a convincing case that the German people weren't entirely innocent. More later.
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I'm about halfway through. He's starting to get into some of the nitty gritty of average Germans rousting Jews out of their homes, marching them into the woods, and shooting them by the dozen. It's harrowing stuff, but he has a point. These are not monsters, nor are they people with guns to their own heads, nor are they brainwashed victims of mass psychosis or manipulation. These are willing souls, given ample opportunities to do otherwise, yet still chosing to slaughter Jews or contribute to their slaughter in some supporting way.
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OK, I have yet to read the appendix on method and the "Foreward to the German edition", but I have read the bulk of the 450+ pages. I originally gave the book an 8, but I am upgrading it to a 9. It's just an awesome piece of scholarship.

Goldhagen challenged the assumptions and myths I had been living with since I can remember. The story I've been told all my life -- that a gang of criminals coerced and brainwashed a nation of millions to do the unthinkable -- is just plain wrong. Germans, according to the book, have always been antisemetic going back at least into the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, however, talk started floating around identifying "The Jewish Problem". The author asserts and supports the claim that by the time Hitler came to power antisemitism was nearly axiomatic or at least an extremely widely held belief. Germans, the author asserts, had already established in their hearts and minds that Jews were a plague of Germany and that something ought to be done. Hitler merely stepped forward and offered the Final Solution to the Problem.

The author shows that at numerous times in three different institutions of the Nazi extermination program against the Jews -- the police battalions, the labor camps, and the death marches -- ordinary Germans (not SS, not Party members, not Gestapo, not intensely Nazified people) had numerous opportunities to either not kill and torture Jews or at least to treat them with less brutality than "necessary" to do the task at hand, whether that be clearing a ghetto or working in a camp. He provides evidence that ordinary Germans could have and did in some cases oppose and stop German violent policy had they wished to do so on behalf of the Jews. The euthanasia program, which aspired to murder the mentally ill and handicapped, was stopped outright because of popular dissent. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi vice president of marketing and public relations, said as much in his diary. He said that the Nazis could never have proceeded in the extermination program had the people not been willing. The evidence the author provides is overwhelming in its quanity, quality, and implications. Germans didn't have to make sport with and beat the Jews they were rounding up to send to the death camps, but they did. They didn't have to starve and torture the Jewish "laborers" in their work camps -- they didn't behave as mercilessly to non-Jew inmates -- but they did. They did not have to march starving, weakened Jews out of the concentration camps and into the countryside to be murdered, even as the regime was in its final hours, shooting Jews up to the last possible moment. But they did. Ordinary Germans, Goldhagen proves over and over again, not only condoned the Holocaust, they voluntarily and energetically participated in it.

Why? Goldhagen's theory is that the virulent, pervasive, axiomatic, racist, and completely unquestioned brand of antisemitism paved the way for Germany's enthusiastic, even joyous, orgy of slaughter against the Jews. This was an antisemitism unlike any other hateful ideology ever conceived in its fantastical extremes, its depth, its breadth (i.e. pervasiveness), and its intensity. It was a racist ideology with only one, single desire -- the annihilation of Jews. The cognitive, ontological, ethical, and psychological framework was already programmed into the hearts and minds of Germans by the time Hitler came along. All he had to do was provide the means and inspiration, which he did in spades.

This book rocked my world. Although its language is very academic and dry, and although the argument is repeated and supported in so many different, exhaustive ways, the book is a compelling read and hard to put down.

Journal Entry 3 by novasoy from Louisville, Kentucky USA on Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Since this is a long, difficult book to slog through, feel free to take up to 8 weeks to read it. Don't take any more, though, so that everyone can get a chance to read it in a timely fashion. Thanx!

The order of this list is almost set. If nobody else joins by the end of the day today (6/29), you can count on this being the final list and order. I will close the ring Wednesday morning (6/30) and mail the book out to huntersmith that afternoon, unless somebody joins that totally counfounds my logical, rational, perfect little system. 8^)

Here are the members of the book ring:

  1. juliebarreto - HI
  2. mrsordonez - MO (US only)
  3. Stensler - WI <-- here
  4. Rrcaron - NH
  5. weeblet - VA
  6. MarciNYC - NJ
  7. tantan - Australia
  8. bcosta - Brazil
  9. novasoy - KY

Journal Entry 4 by novasoy at Another bookcrosser in Kamuela, Hawaii -- Controlled Releases on Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Released on Wednesday, June 30, 2004 at Another bookcrosser in Kamuela, Hawaii Controlled Releases.

Sending this via first class mail at noon today. Aloha!

Journal Entry 5 by juliebarreto from Puako, Hawaii USA on Wednesday, July 7, 2004
It arrived today! Thank you for sharing. This will be an interesting follow-up to Ursula Hegi's "Tearing the Silence," which I just finished last month. Hegi interviewed post-WW2 adult German-Americans as to what being German meant and what they learned about being German from their parents. The Holocaust naturally forms a big part of that history. Almost all the adult Germans told their kids they ALL suffered during the war.

August 1, 2004 - Finished it and will send it off to Mrs. Ordonez tomorrow. Fascinating and frightening. And repetitive. The mindset of exterminationist antisemitism allowed ordinary Germans to consider and treat Jews as if they simply were not human beings. That what comes of demonizing and generalizing and blaming. This is the archtype, but I think the elements can be seen in many other contexts.

Journal Entry 6 by mrsordonez from Fenton, Missouri USA on Friday, September 3, 2004
It has arrived! Boy, media mail is slow from HI!!! This book looks great. I'm on page 12 or so, and so far can follow it pretty well. It looks deep and complex. I'll journal more upon finishing. Thanks so much for sharing!

Journal Entry 7 by mrsordonez from Fenton, Missouri USA on Tuesday, November 9, 2004
I'm still reading this, but am determined to get it shipped out shortly. Don't worry, I'm not a black hole!

Journal Entry 8 by mrsordonez from Fenton, Missouri USA on Sunday, November 21, 2004
Oh man! I'm sending this book on tomorrow, thank you for being so patient with me. The book travelled everywhere with me, to my daughter's gymnastics meet, to work (which I don't even have anymore, I got laid off!), to bed, to the gym, the only place it didn't make it was the bathroom (with five people sharing one bathroom, you can't read there anyway!). What can I say about this book? It is a good book. I had a very hard time reading it, as I'm not quite in a "nonfiction" mood, and the book is very intense. I have read about the Holocaust, and studied it in school (Theology of the Holocaust, a very interesting class about how the Jewish faith was affected by this tragedy). I am very moved by this topic, and find the whole affair atrocious. I think that I find biographies more insightful, however, as I tend to address the Holocaust on a personal level. If anyone else is interested, and doesn't know where to go beyond Anne Frank, Primo Levi and Eli Weisel are two very good biographers of the era. I also was lucky enough to see a very moving exhibit that came to my university (the name slips the mind) but it contained paraphanalia (actual antisemitic signs from towns, Nazi uniforms, pictures of the camps, etc.) that was almost indescribable in its effect. (I now remember it was sponsored by the Gothe Foundation, I believe). I found that in this book, the parts that were more biographical, such as the account of the Jewish woman who was "shunned" even after her conversion to Christianity, Kristallnacht, the death marches at the end of the war, much more fascinating and personal. Goldhagen makes a good point in his reasoning, and his book was mentioned in my German Philosophy class more than once, but I did find it a bit repetitive and hard to follow. It is a complicated thesis, and I have to admit that at the end, I just gave up following all of the supporting points, and just scanned for the personal accounts. I think that I need more centrality to have addressed the book any more deeply, and I just can't seem to conjure that up after being in possession of the book for so long. So, in sight of fairness, and as to not be a black hole, I am passing the book on without the deep analysis that I usually like to reserve for books of this nature. I hope I have written enough insightful comments for it to have been worth being in my possesion for so long. Thank you for your patience, novasoy, and this will be mailed shortly. No one could have better summed up the book than you, anyway. I do agree with the author that the "Judenfrage" was in the German's hearts way before Hitler's influence. It just bewilders me to think that people can treat others with such little humanity (I can't conceptualize slavery either...) I think that the account of one of the final death marches, where the officers were told NOT to kill Jews, and were given with provisions that they chose to feed to the chickens instead of their prisoners shows just how warped their minds had become, on an overall level, and that it had nothing to do with coersion or fear of retribution. What a great find at the goodwill! Mine never has such great titles.

Journal Entry 9 by Stensler from Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA on Saturday, November 27, 2004
Recieved in the mail today. Thanks I can't wait to read this. I am a little behind in my bookrings at the moment but I plan to be catching up soon.

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