Hitler's Willing Executioners

2866 Words6 Pages

Hitler's Willing Executioners

Fifty years after Adolph Hitler’s failed attempt to exterminate the Jews of

Europe, there still remains no consensus upon the causes of this event. Daniel

Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hilter’s Willing Executioners, attempts to provide a

new approach and new explanations to the perplexing questions left in the

aftermath of 1945. Upon it’s publication, Goldhagen’s thesis came under much

scrutiny by his academic peers. Goldhagen’s 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

of thousands. The abrupt transformation of Germans from bakers, bankers and

bureaucrats to mass murderers was due to a particularly virulent strain of

anti-Semitism. Goldhagen’s indictment focuses on the citizenry’s complicity in

three of Nazi Germany’s institutions of mass killing; the Ordnungspolizie (the

Nazi Police Battalions), the work camps where Jews were incarcerated, and the

death marches from the those camps led by prison guards and their charges

near the end of the war.

While Goldhagen efficiently states the thesis to his dissertation, his

organizational style leaves much to be desired. One of the primary problems

with his style is it’s irritatingly repetitive nature. Goldhagen simply reiterates his

position, particularly in the opening chapters. In these chapter, on no less than

five occasions, he states the need for academicians to “reconceive our

understanding of modern German anti-Semitism by applying the theoretical and

methodological prescriptions enunciated here, including the dimensional

framework, to a more specific analysis of the histor...

... middle of paper ...

...oners. However, these people were

guilty for failing to protest Hitler’s murderous intentions and policies while there

was still time, and for this, they should be ashamed.

Bibliography:

Bibliography

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the

Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996

Pagination

Complete Pagination: 622 pages

Map Pagination: 8 maps appear throughout the text.

Appedices Pagination: 2 Appendices include 9 total pages.

Indices Pagination: 15 pages

Chart Pagination: N/A

Bibliography: The extended bibliography is found in the Notes section of the work. The

pagination of the note section is 126 pages.

Miscellaneous Pagination:

2 pages entitled Acknowledgement

1 page entitled Pseudonyms

2 pages entitled Abbreviations

2 pages of Photo Credits

Open Document