Hitler's Willing Executioners Essay example - 2875 Words.
Goldhagen’s thesis relies on the idea that since medieval times, a specific kind of eliminationist anti-Semitism had developed in Germany. According to Goldhagen, the German population was already open to the idea of eliminating the Jews.
Goldhagen argues that for centuries, nearly every German was possessed of a homicidal animus towards Jews and thus 80 to 90 percent of Germans would have relished in the occasion to eliminate Jews.
The paper argues with the way Browning explains the behavior of the German people and supports Goldhagen's perspective that there was something extraordinary in the mentality of the Germans. The paper contends that we cannot consider the Nazi psychology as ordinary, rather, we must accept that the Germans were vulnerable to the hate-fueled exploitation of a profoundly anti-Semitic, violent and.
In the many challenges raised to the argument of Hitler's Willing Executioners, there has been a puzzling neglect of religion's part in creating German anti-Semitism, and of the role of the churches in the Third Reich. This despite the fact that Goldhagen repeatedly returns to the subject of religion and the churches.
But Goldhagen's argument relies on the fact that there was little opposition to anti-Semitism. This can be proven wrong by the work of the Social Democratic party (SPD) in Germany between the 1870s and the outbreak of the First World War.
Central to Goldhagen’s argument that the Policemen massacred Jews willingly, is their reluctance to excuse themselves from the operation when given the opportunity. The main “opportunity” in which to do this, is the moment before the massacre, when Major Trapp (the officer in charge of the.
Goldhagen's argument The principal theme of Goldhagen's book is easily summarized. The cause of the Holocaust is to be found in the mind-set and beliefs of the Germans. A vast national collective.
Goldhagens argument is that the usual historical explanations of the Holocaust do not add up. The Holocaust was not perpetrated by a small band of Nazis but by ordinary Germans in the hundreds.
Goldhagen Essay Examples 2 total results The Use of Speculation Instead of Proof in Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, a Book by Daniel Goldhagen.
Goldhagen argues that eliminationist antisemitism was the cornerstone of German national identity, was unique to Germany, and because of it ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Goldhagen asserts that this mentality grew out of medieval attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized.
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Essay (back to top) Daniel Jonah Goldhagen dismisses reasons such as peer pressure, fear of punishment, Germans being more willing to follow orders, promoting self-interest, or fragmentation, and instead suggests a different reason in his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners.
Finkelstein, like Goldhagen, argues mainly from secondary sources. He agrees that Germany's anti-Semitic legacy, placing Jews ''outside the community of moral concern,'' was a vital precondition.
