by Rolf Schwarz                                                                                   

In 1996 Daniel Jonah Goldhagen published his book "Hitler's willing executioners". The main thesis Goldhagen put forward was that "a demonological antisemitism, of the virulent racial variety, was the common structure of the perpetrators' cognition and of German society in general. The German perpetrators, in this view, were assenting executioners, men and women who, true to their own eliminationist antisemitic beliefs, faithful to their cultural antisemitic credo, considered the slaughter to be just." ⁽³⁹²⁾[1] The thesis focused on three subjects: "the perpetrators of the Holocaust, German antisemitism, and the nature of German society during the Nazi period." ⁽⁵⁾ Due to the scope of his thesis, Goldhagen limited the study to focus almost entirely on the Germans ^{(419, 488)} in claiming that the nationality of the perpetrators was the most important feature that superseded all other aspects of their identities and behaviour ⁽⁷⁾.  

A substantial part of the thesis is devoted to describing the rise, scope and importance of antisemitism in German society throughout the centuries since the middle ages. He does so because of two reasons; first, because he regards antisemitism as a determining principle that was deeply embedded not only in the society of Nazi-Germany but in German culture per se ^{(7, 8, 14, 163, 250, 396, 416, 417, 419, 446)}. According to Goldhagen "to be German" and "to be antisemitic" was interchangeable. Second, in establishing that structures in societies define actors ^{(33, 46, 428, 446f, 449)}, Goldhagen found an explanation why the perpetrators did what they did.

Although antisemitism was a permanent part of western culture ^(42,43) as well as integral to Christianity as such ^{(39, 42, 49f)}, Goldhagen insists that over centuries a special German antisemitism arose, an antisemitism unlike any other ^{(53ff, 63ff)}. This antisemitism was to be found everywhere, even in institutions where love, compassion and pity were supposed to reign ⁽⁴³⁴⁾, such as the catholic and protestant churches ^{(107 to 116, 431 to 439)}. By the beginning of the 19th century, after centuries of antisemitic preaching, the vast majority of the German population was antisemitic ⁽⁵⁶⁾. Over the course of the 19^th century this antisemitism became even more intense ⁽⁷⁴⁾, resulting in a German society that was through and through antisemitic ^{(72, 82, 419)}, including Liberals, who in the past had been somewhat protected against antisemitism ^(58f). As a result Goldhagen concludes that Germans as a whole had been antisemitic before the rise of the Nazis ^{(77, 79, 87)}. All the Nazis had to do was to activate the antisemitism ^{(72, 126, 128, 442, 446)} so prominent in the German culture by massive indoctrination ^{(29, 30, 60, 81, 88, 136, 184, 414, 428, 442)}. The prime mover behind this activation of antisemitism was Hitler and the Nazi-party ^{(85f, 135f, 158, 424, 447f, 459)}.

The main concern of Goldhagen is the nature of antisemitism. Antisemitism, once it is aroused, is always present in society. The failure to identify strong antisemitic sentiments at a given time does not mean that antisemitism had disappeared; it just lay dormant ^{(43f, 45, 78)}. Not only was antisemitism ever present in German society[2], but it also contained a special quality, elimination. The Jews and their influence had to be eliminated from German society ^{(see especially chapter 3, 4, 5, 16)}. The eliminationist process during the reign of the Nazi-party was to become the Holocaust.

The Holocaust, according to Goldhagen, started when the Nazis came to power ^{(8 123)}, since Hitler could start to engage in his favourite project, the project of extermination of the Jews in Europe ^{(see chapter 4)}. The eliminationist project was one single process ^{(126f, 131, 134, 146f, 161f, 422f, 425)} that had three distinct phases ^{(38f, 420)}. The first phase was shaped by outside pressures or inner weakness ^{(125, 131f, 140, 158)}, the second phase by the beginning of the war. The soviet military weakness in 1941/ 42 marked the start of the last and lethal phase of the eliminationist-exterminationist process ⁽⁴²²⁾. 

The other main point of Goldhagen's thesis is to establish that the perpetrators of the heinous crimes against the Jews knew what they did and volunteered to do so. It is Goldhagen’s view that the Nazi seizure of power "was a peaceful revolution willingly acquiesced by the German people. Domestically, the Nazi German revolution was, on the whole, consensual." ⁽⁴⁵⁶⁾ The majority of Germans supported the new system and its fervent antisemitism ^{(210, 371, 418, 419, 448)} as the lack of popular critique of the "Reichkristallnacht", in which Synagogues all over Germany, alongside Jewish shops and businesses, were raided and destroyed, showed ⁽¹⁰²⁾. When the last phase of the eliminationist process was under way, the Nazis did not care to hide the extermination of the Jews and the extermination became widely known ^{(123, 244f)}. Frequently, the Germans who took part in the extermination of the Jews were being given the choice to say no without the threat of reprisals ^{(220, 278, 362, 377)} but since the Germans wanted Jews to suffer and be killed ⁽¹⁷⁰⁾ they approved the killing ⁽⁸⁹⁾. Far from being coerced by structures, peer pressure or circumstances the perpetrators made moral choices ⁽³⁹²⁾ and decided to torture and kill Jews out free will ^{(14, 221, 237, 256, 277, 352, 362, 369, 377, 381, 385, 406, 416, 452)}. Germans were so locked up in their hatred against Jews that they continued killing even against direct orders from Himmler, Imperial Commander-in-Chief of the SS, Police, Gestapo and Waffen-SS, himself ^{(362, 371)}.

Since a substantial number of perpetrators were non-Nazis ^{(210, 333, 336)} and came from all walks of life ⁽²⁰⁷⁾ they were "ordinary" Germans ⁽²⁷⁴⁾, representatives of all Germans ⁽⁹⁾. Goldhagen’s conclusion: All Germans would have been killers given the opportunity ⁽⁴⁵⁴⁾.

What appears to be a fairly straight forward put argument is abundant with contradictions and inconsistencies. The methodological approach is questionable and the style of writing sometimes appalling. It is poorly researched at times and its moral-normative impetus ranges from being naive to downright offensive.

In order to assess whether the only proper name of perpetrator is German this work examines the claims of “Germanness” concerning the three subject identified by Goldhagen himself:

• the specific German antisemitism,
• the nature of German society during the Nazi-era,
• the perpetrator of the Holocaust.

Central to the notion that German perpetrators were Germans first and not Members of the SS, Police or Nazi party is the concept of a special antisemitism embedded in the national culture of Germany as the prime factor behind the Holocaust ⁽⁴⁷⁹⁾. Antisemitism served as a unifying bond between the perpetrators, not a political ideology, which would transcend nationality and could include foreign nationals, in theory at least - hence the frequent insistence that the perpetrators were not “nazified”.

So, let’s look at Goldhagen’s concept of a specific and unique German form of antisemitism. As straightforward as it seems, as problematic it is as well.

The establishment of a special German antisemitism: "Germany" as such exists just since 1872. Prior to that date the area later to become the German Empire was a rag rug of more than 150 states of various sizes. The area itself that those states covered varied throughout the history. At one time the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation included Rome, for instance. Prussia, in its history, included substantial numbers of Poles and Austria, especially during its k.u.k monarchy included Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians and Serbs among other ethnic-national groups. Substantial numbers of German settlers were to be found in Rumania (Siebenbürger Sachsen, Banater Schwaben) and Russia. Altona, now a integral part of the city boundaries of Hamburg, belonged to Denmark, as did most of the part of northern Germany until 1864. Germans lived in parts of France ( Elsaß- Lothringen) and Belgium ( Eupen-Malmedy). While Germans lived scattered all over central and east Europe and often shared the land with other ethnic groups Goldhagen’s special German antisemitism was not only very selective of whom of the people living side by side it infected but it miraculously stopped at borders that centuries later will mark the territory of the 3rd German Empire.  So, how exactly did the German antisemitism develop ? Goldhagen’s thesis lacks an answer to this question.

Another point that remains unclear concerns the emancipation of Jews in Germany. Given the omnipotence of antisemitism that Goldhagen attributes the various German societies during the 19th century with, Goldhagen fails to show how and why an elite was brought up that did not only reach conclusions about Jews that were diametrical opposed to the views of the society they were part of, but held on to those views pushing on with the emancipation of the Jews ⁽⁵⁶⁾ when it was obvious that the vast majority of the population did not share those views or were even violently opposed to them. One should expect that especially since the French revolution the ruling aristocrats, far from being democrats, would nevertheless not dare to excite the masses with highly controversial and unpopular measures, risking civil unrest. So, why did they go ahead with the emancipation of the Jews ? Goldhagen remains silent on this topic.

However tempting it is to establish an antisemitic society per definition, it leaves Goldhagen with a difficulty to explain how exactly it came about and how it was possible for people to deviate from the prominent cognitive structure of society.  One of the weaknesses of the book is that Goldhagen does not try to unravel these mysteries. 

Even though Goldhagen failed in explaining the emerge of a particular German antisemitism could a general antisemitism nevertheless be the one and only driving-force behind the motives of the perpetrators of the Holocaust ?

Ironically, the role of antisemitism as a stimulator to incite the killing of Jews is unwillingly brought into question by Goldhagen himself. After devoting 7 out of 16 chapters to the establishment of antisemitism as the ultimate rationale behind the Holocaust, he goes on to give examples of antisemites, who wished that Jews would die out bloodlessly ^{(109, 432f)}, who defended Jews ⁽⁴³⁷⁾ and even helped Jews ^{(113, 437)}. If antisemitism did not prevent antisemites from helping Jews, then this raises serious doubts about the importance of that belief system in explaining the actions of perpetrators in general. If is was possible for people to act against their beliefs than that leaves room for other factors contributing to the decision of perpetrators to kill.

The nature of German society during the Nazi period (1): By virtue of stating that German society had been antisemitic with a fundamentally different ontology and cosmology ⁽⁴⁶⁰⁾ that would eventually lead to a straight path to the extermination of the Jews ⁽⁴²⁵⁾ Goldhagen turns the juridical principle of  “assumed innocent until proven guilty” on its head. Due to Goldhagen’s thesis every German is guilty until proven innocent. The advantage of this approach is that Goldhagen is left with just a relatively few testimonies of non-antisemites, thereby turning people, who did not leave any hard evidence about their beliefs into antisemites. Not just known perpetrators, but bystanders and onlookers are counted as potential executioners.

Passivity itself becomes a crime. But passivity may not only signal silent approval, but also silent protest. An onlooker in the window who watches columns of Jews being marched out of the city may appear not raise a hand in defiance of the action, but on the other hand he does not take part in favour of the action either. Passivity may be the only way open for people to show opposition in a totalitarian state that openly favours and encourages acts against Jews.

But Goldhagen is quick to dismiss notions of coercive means of a totalitarian state ⁽⁹⁾ concerning explanations as to why Germans killed so willingly and why the general public did not speak out about the antisemitism, the ever-growing separation of Jews from society, their deportation and subsequent killing.

Goldhagen’s argument is that the Nazi-state did not need to be coercive since the wider German population approved of the system and widely supported it- hence the small number of 25,000 ⁽¹⁷⁷⁾ inmates of concentration camps in 1939. Not only does Goldhagen fail to problematise the need of concentration camps in a country whose population largely supported the government and its various measures, but his use of the number of political prisoners given is highly dubious. Nowhere does Goldhagen justify his qualification of 25,000 concentration camp inmates as being “insignificant”⁽¹⁷⁷⁾.

He also fails to remark on the notion that political prisoners were not only held in concentration camps but also in “normal” prisons. Counting all people held in “protective custody”, a euphemism for political imprisonment, produces a number of more than 150,000 in 1939. During the early days of the Nazi-era a transferral to a concentration camp did not necessarily mean unlimited imprisonment. After being cautioned (!) people were released after some time. The estimate of the number of people having been in “protective custody” for some time between 1933 and 1939 ranges from 350,000 to 500,000. (Aleff, E.: Das 3. Reich, Hannover, 1970, p. 75). Not all of those people had been imprisoned for „crimes“ in connection with antisemitism, but this number shows that a lot of people have made their acquaintance with the “no-nonsense” approach of the new order. Would people not think twice about ever publicly challenging the state about anything ? 

Germans may not have been a role model of civic courage but there is a crucial difference between conviction and fear.

Since Goldhagen cannot define the numbers of perpetrators other than in a rough estimate, any claims of the insignificance of opponents to the regime are difficult to uphold. After all, the picture of a society which has about 3,000,000 perpetrators but an equal number of opponents in concentration camps with the majority of the population remaining in inertia may not the best but is certainly not the worst of all possible societies.

Goldhagen makes much of the fact that the German population had compassion with ethnic groups other than Jews. This may be due to the fact that there was a difference between “critique within the system” and “critique of the system”. Since the Nazis never publicly condemned “Ostarbeiter” (Eastern workers) as such, government agents could not use opposition to cruel treatment and killing as a lever against complainants. Jews, on the other hand had been singled out as “enemies” of the state and people. Unlike complaints concerning the treatment of Poles for instance which could not be held against the complainant (critique within the system), critical remarks concerning the treatment of Jews were seen as “treason” and could bear serious consequences for the person lodging a complaint (critique of the system).

Goldhagen points to the killing of handicapped and mentally ill, the euthanasia killings, not only as one of two examples for Germans opposing the regime but also to show that the regime backed down when faced with massive opposition. There are, however, indications that the killings were aborted not just due to the widespread protest but also because the initial aims of

(a)   experimenting with large scale killing,

(b)   testing the reaction of the population concerning large scale killings and

(c)    succeeding in the killing of the majority of the intended victims

were achieved.

Furthermore, as with the possibility of opposition concerning the treatment of foreign workers protesting against the euthanasia killing was “possible” because however undesirable the survival of handicapped and mentally ill people was regarded by the regime, it had not declared them enemies of the state and people. Since it was not “treason” to speak out for them, people couldn’t be punished for doing so. Opposition was possible.

Another aspect between the reaction of the public towards casualties of the euthanasia-program and the treatment of Jews lies in the absolute numbers killed. The euthanasia campaign was stopped after 70,000 killings. And even though Jews had been killed by that time the casualty rate was nowhere near that figure. Compared with the euthanasia killings there was no reason to protest against widespread and systematic killing of Jews sanctioned and induced by the state. The killings of Jews could still be rationalised and excused as “unfortunate occurrences” by that time.

However, Goldhagen is right if he doubts the concept of  “indifference” attributed to the Germans. After all, indifference means “a complete lack of interest” (Cobuilt-Collins, English Language Dictionary, London et al., 1987, p. 741) Germans may have been interested in what was happening to the Jews, that is why they watched the synagogues burn and the Jews being rounded up and sent away but were afraid to interfere. Instead of the notion of  “indifference” perhaps a better concept to describe the attitude of the wider population is that “the Germans didn’t care enough to put their own life in peril”.

Goldhagen frequently states that Germans were indeed willing to face up to the regime about anything but the fate of the Jews. This is highly dubious. Even a superficial glance at the situation reveals that the wider population did not only refuse to stir a hand in defence of the Jews, but also showed no sign of a wide-scale expression of sympathy for the imprisoned communists, social democrats, unionists and other groups and individuals singled out by the Nazis to be put in concentration camps. Martin Niemöller’s famous dictum illustrates this impressively: “When they came for the communists I didn’t speak out: I wasn’t a communist. When they imprisoned the social democrats I didn’t speak out: I wasn’t a social democrat. When they came for the unionists I didn’t speak out: I wasn’t a unionist. When they came for the Jews I didn’t speak out: I wasn’t a Jew. When they came for me there was no one left who could have spoken out.” (translated from the original in: Steinbach/ Tuchel (eds.), Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus, Berlin, 1994, p. 12).

Again, Germans may not have been the beacon of civic solidarity, but cowardice is different to accomplicement.

Goldhagen’s treatment of the German society during the Nazi period leaves many open questions:

• If the German society as a whole was thoroughly antisemitic even before the Nazis came to power why did the Nazis see the need for massive indoctrination ? After all, as Goldhagen himself points out in reference to democracy in America, values and norms, which are unquestioned and uncontested in society, do not need constant re-emphasizing ^(32f).

• If the Nazi revolution was largely approved by the general public, why did the Nazis see the need for the establishment of concentration camps in the first place, after all, a pretty drastic measure ?

• If the Germans were so ready to oppose the Nazis on other issues ^{(116, 119, 382, 383, 430, 441)}, as Goldhagen tries to establish in order to reinforce the general public’s approval of antisemitism, why was this massive opposition in Germany not able to form a nationwide organised resistance ?

• If the Germans were thoroughly antisemitic, living in a state that openly encouraged assault upon Jews ⁽¹³⁷⁾ why did “just” between 36 (Ortag,P.: Jüdische Kultur und Geschichte, Potsdam, 1995, p. 116) and 100 Jews ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ get killed in the “Reichskristallnacht” ? Would one not expect a much greater plight given that 80 million antisemitic fanatics were given the opportunity to go on the rampage, enabling them to act out their innermost despise and hatred of Jews ?

• If Germans were thoroughly antisemitic, why did the “Rechskristallnacht” atrocities against Jews attract so much criticism and even outrage ^(101f) by the Germans ? 

• If the Germans were shaped by a thoroughly antisemitic culture and came to support the extermination of Jews wholeheartedly, how was it possible for Germans to be critical of the treatment of Jews ^{(97, 101, 103, 105, 121)} ?

• If Germans were thoroughly antisemitic which led them to be pitiless against the plight of the Jews why did the local German population spontaneously try to help and had to be deterred from the guards ⁽³⁴⁸⁾ ?

All these questions indicate that descriptions of the German society during the Nazi period have to be much more complex than Goldhagen is ready to accept.

Goldhagen totally fails in assessing the wider German population. He hardly looks at their everyday life other than atrocities against Jews. There are no particulars of the personal background of the perpetrators, or of the victims for that matter.

There is no detailed and structured examination about the extent and the influence of the repressive terror in the first years of the Nazi-era and its effects on the wider population (repression of free press, freedom of speech, trade unions, any parties other than the Nazi party; people were paraded through the street with signs around their necks saying that they will never complain to the police again (Schoenberger, G.: Der gelbe Stern, Frankfurt/M., 1995, p. 25); the names of people who were not following the boycott against Jewish shops and businesses were publicly displayed (Aleff, E.: Das 3. Reich, Hannover, 1970, p. 80); Germans who were found to have a sexual relationship with Jews were publicly shamed by making them wear signs saying that they were pigs (Schoenberger, G.: Der gelbe Stern, Frankfurt/M., 1995, p. 35); in the first few years almost a hundred thousand people were arrested and brought to concentration camps and it was not uncommon that people were killed while in “protective custody”). 

There is no evaluation of how many people believed in the policies of the Nazi-government, to what extend they believed in them, if they believed some policies to be more desirable than others and if so which ones.

Goldhagen fails to asses various levels of involvement in the broader antisemitic campaign as well as failing to produce statistical evidence about

• how many people were actual perpetrators,
• how many people were involved in the various levels of planning the extermination (Schreibtischtäter),
• how many people were involved in the tasks of concealing the extermination (Propagandaabteilungen),
• how many people came in contact with the various aspects of the prosecution, rounding up, deportation and extermination of Jews (from civil servants to railway workers),
• how many people were opposed to the killings and how they reacted (from actual helping and concealing Jews to occasional signs of compassion and sympathy to clenching the fist in the pocket),
• how many people went into “inner exile”, shutting their ears and eyes to everything that was going on in their country.

There is no detailed structured analysis of the views of oppositional groups and individuals concerning the antisemitism pursued by the government other than fragmented statements. The resistance movement, he claims, didn’t do anything about the antisemitism, on the contrary, was part of the national culture of antisemitism in Germany. Unfortunately, other than stating this he does not offer any evidence or detailed analysis concerning this aspect.

While Goldhagen ignores large sections of the German population, he gives some attention to the institutions of the protestant and catholic churches. He fails to remark on that especially the Roman Catholic Church is not a “national” church but an international body. The Catholic Church is organised along hierarchical lines- and the Pope himself had reached out to negotiate a concordat with the Nazi-government. How free was the national German branch to operate under that agreement ? Goldhagen remains silent on this subject.

Goldhagen’s way to describe German society is to describe the actions of some of the perpetrators, in particular the members of various police battalions. Instead of evaluating the everyday life of the German population in order to answer the question of how important the concept of antisemitism was to the population at large and which repercussion antisemitism had on their life, researching local history and diaries, Goldhagen focuses mainly on the perpetrators. Even though Goldhagen himself acknowledges the importance of the particular historical settings of the perpetrators ⁽⁷⁾ and demands that one should try to imagine oneself in the shoes of the people at that time ⁽²¹⁾ the "ordinary" Germans outside the group of perpetrators remains remarkably shallow.

In order to build a bridge from the perpetrators back to the general society, to the "ordinary" Germans, Goldhagen juggles with numbers. Without reference to any statistical norms Goldhagen just states that "if five hundred thousand or one million Germans were perpetrators, then it [the Holocaust] is ... perhaps best perceived as a German national project." ⁽¹¹⁾. Goldhagen then goes on to identify 10 to 20 % of the population in the nineteenth century being antisemites ⁽⁶¹⁾, in 1880 there were about 300,000 antisemites ⁽⁶²⁾ and later in the 1920's the number of antisemites in Germany were hundreds of thousands ⁽⁸⁴⁾. In the end, however, Goldhagen has to concede that the precise number of antisemites is unknown ⁽⁷⁵⁾. In establishing the number of perpetrators Goldhagen faces the same difficulty: his estimate ranges from tens of thousands ⁽²⁴⁾ to hundreds of thousands ⁽⁸⁾ to perhaps five hundred thousands and more ⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ to "enormous" ^{(166, 177)}, but has to concede again that the exact number is actually unknown ⁽¹¹⁾. How far antisemitism was actually spread in Germany during the 1930's and its importance to the German population remains unanswered.

Excurse I- The timetable of the Holocaust

Another area which Goldhagen chooses not to consider in his thesis are the actions taken by foreign nations concerning the situation in Germany. Goldhagen claims that he is just concerned about the Germans, not foreign powers. However, there are consequences of measures taken up by foreign nations, which influence the formulation of antisemitic politics in Germany.

Goldhagen states that the Holocaust was an ongoing process that started when the Nazis came to power and found its logical conclusion in the actual extermination between 1941 and 1945. This view is contested. Other authors identify 3 distinct phases: from 1933 to 1939, from 1939 to 1941 and from 1941 to 1945.(Eban, A.: Dies ist mein Volk, München et al. 1970, p. 316; Rubinstein, W. D.: The Myth of rescue, London, 2000, p. 15ff) The first phase was characterised by the segregation of Jews from public and social life, the second was marked by the outbreak of the war and the third saw the extermination. Goldhagen states that Hitler had always intended to kill all Jews but inner and outer weakness had prevented him to pursue his aim in what analytical became the “first phase”. Having acknowledged that the allies knew that the fate of the Jews was their immediate extermination ^{(126, 142)}, Goldhagen fails to examine

1. why the allies did not intervene to stop those policies in the first place, after all, Germany was weak and not to be feared,
2. why at the conferences of Evian the Allies and later in the “white book” of Britain immigration was severely restricted robbing Jews of  the chances to escape and why during the latter years of the first phase more often than not ships of  Jewish refugees were turned back from their point of destination (Ortag, P.: Jüdische Kultur und Geschichte, Potsdam, 1995, p. 109; Eban, A.: Dies ist mein Volk, 1970, p. 315) and
3. whether these developments themselves had any impact on

(a)   the formulation of politics by the Nazis- unable to eliminate them by forcing them to immigrate, plans of “reservations” in Eastern Europe or Madagascar surfaced (2^nd phase) for some time but with the occupation of most part of the European part of the Soviet Union and further 5 million Jews under German jurisdiction the elimination turned to extermination (military weakness of Red Army making extermination possible- large thinly populated areas available to erect extermination camps, large population of Eastern European Jews fell into the hand of Germans without any hope for the victims of a strong, deterring Soviet Union nearby);

(b)   the wider German population since it seemed that undesirability of Jews was not only restricted to Germany but shared by other nations.  

The nature of German society during the Nazi period (2): Another way to examine the nature of German society is not to look at it historically but normatively.

Goldhagen insists that the Germans over most part of their history were not like “us” ^{(27f, 45, 455, 460)} not “normal” ^{(455, 460)}. Not only does Goldhagen fail to state who “us” comprises of- Americans, the Allies, the western world ?-, but he does not explain why he thinks the policies and effects of the first phase of the Holocaust was fundamentally different to Apartheid or  segregation in the South of the U.S.A. in the thirties.

Likewise, he does not establish why the public display of prisoners marching through the countryside is different to the chain-gang in America (not just a feature of times long gone but recently reintroduced in several states of the US)- in both cases public was to made seen that justice works, that prisoners suffer.

He does not show why, on the personal level of the individual, any member of the police battalions being drafted in to commit executions of Jews is fundamentally different to the American GI who took part in atrocities like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

He does not establish why with the development of war from a battle between aristocrats to the slaughter of peoples armies the classification of civilians as legitimate targets for killing in war is a specific German behaviour that is in no way shared by any European army (the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

He fails in what way the public shaming of women for instance who had love affairs with Jews and who were subsequently made wearing signs declaiming them being a pig is fundamentally different from schemes recently discussed for instance in Britain about publicising the true identities of convicted but released paedophiles.

Surplus brutality was not just sign of the willingness of the perpetrator to maim and kill- a feature that is hardly distinct German but is very much part in modern history from for example the Sand Creek massacre of the Southern Cheyenne (Brown, D.: Begrabt mein Herz an der Biegung des Flusses, München, 1979, p. 96ff) to the burning alive of Moslems in Ahmici in former Yugoslavia-, but there might have been a rationale behind the shouting, pushing and beating: not to allow the individual time to stop and think. Police squat-teams all over the world apply these shock-tactics whenever it is necessary to confuse and frighten people to stifle resistance. This is not to say that the perpetrators did not intentionally use beatings and maiming to inflict pain and suffering as a means in itself. But the nature of behaviour in concentration camps, on death marches and escorts to execution sites may be much more interwoven with general developments in Western European thought than Goldhagen with his specific German antisemitism explanation is ready to concede.  

Goldhagen fails to show in what way his concept of eliminationist antisemitism is different from ordinary racism- over the last few weeks the media in Britain focussed on some asylum seekers who were found to be begging in the streets and calls to expel them came not only from the media itself but also from politicians. Goldhagen’s argument that the Germans must have been motivated by a specific antisemitism embedded in German culture since Italians and Danes would not have reacted the same way under similar circumstances being ordered to exterminate Jews, is flawed. The crux is not why Danes and Italians did not act the same way, but why the Ukrainians, Latvians and other ethnic groups did. If it was antisemitism nevertheless, than Goldhagen fails to produce evidence in regard to show that an Ukrainian antisemitism is different to an German antisemitism to uphold the thesis that the German perpetrators were motivated by a specific German antisemitism.

The perpetrators of the Holocaust: The third aspect of Goldhagen’s thesis is presented by him in an very unusual manner. Instead of presenting a cross-section of German executioners, Goldhagen ignores the whole spectrum of  perpetrators (SS, SD, Einsatzgruppen, Waffen-SS, Wehrmacht [Army]) and focuses almost exclusively on police battalions. In minute, gruesome detail he describes killings, torture and death marches. His aim is to establish in how far the perpetrators were “ordinary Germans” and would therefore represent the wider society resulting in the indictment that all Germans were potential killers.

But the description of the policemen is somewhat at odds with the rest of the book. Throughout the book Goldhagen emphasised the massive antisemitic indoctrination ^{(29, 30, 60, 81, 88, 136, 184, 414, 428, 442)} that Hitler and the Nazi-party ^{(85f, 135f, 158, 424, 447f, 459)} had orchestrated to induce the Germans to hate the Jews. But when it comes to the actual perpetrators Goldhagen insists that the policemen, the main villains in the book, were not nazified. But if the perpetrators actions were not motivated by Nazi propaganda, if the perpetrators were not brain-washed ^{(116, 184, 210, 277, 382)}, if they were non-Nazis ⁽³³⁶⁾ why write so many pages about Nazi indoctrination in the first place ?

But the whole methodological approach seems somewhat questionable. The methodology of focussing on police battalions is justified if Goldhagen wanted to describe the action of police battalions involved in killings. But his method to pick on some extreme groups and make general assumptions about the wider population or culture based solely on the fact that the perpetrators were once part of that population/ culture is rather bizarre. Imagine a study about the American culture and population that would almost entirely focus on white serial killers, rapists and murderers. That study would probably unearth some interesting facts but in how far would that research represent a true picture of American society ?

But the most disturbing aspects of Goldhagen’s thesis is his insistence that even though Jews and non-Jews suffered ⁽¹⁶⁰⁾ and were killed ⁽¹⁴⁹⁾ the Jews suffered far more than anyone else ^{(127, 175, 240, 295, 312)}. He claims that the living conditions of non-Jews in the camps were “relatively good” ⁽³⁴⁰⁾, that non-Jews were treated “enormously different and better”  ⁽³⁴³⁾ and “lived a life of relatively luxury” ⁽³⁴³⁾. He further claims that no non-Jewish women died in a particular camp ⁽³⁴⁰⁾ resulting in a “shocking longevity” ⁽³⁴³⁾ for non-Jewish inmates. According to Goldhagen the perpetrators treated others better ^{(117f, 173, 295, 312, 328, 330, 340f, 343, 352)} because they wanted to kill only Jews ^{(13, 240)}. This is hardly supported by the historical data. On top of the figure of about 6 million Jews who perished during the war about 3 million soviet prisoners of war and about 2 million political prisoners and resistance fighters, gypsies, homosexuals and other groups and individuals that the Nazi-regime wanted to dispose of died in camps as well, bringing the actual figure of people killed to about 11 million (Altmann, P. et al: Der deutsche antifaschistische Widerstand, 1933- 1945, Frankfurt/M., 1975, p. 318). Add a substantial number of Soviet citizens who had been massacred during the German occupation and Goldhagen’s claim about the uniqueness of suffering in the Holocaust ^{(4, 5, 28, 386, 412)}, i. e. the plight of Jews rings a bit hollow. 

However, killings of the non-Jews can hardly be explained by any kind of antisemitism and the vast amount of non-Jewish victims, easily outnumbering them, indicates that the drive of Nazi-Germany to exterminate was not limited by antisemitism. This is not a diminishing of the plight of the Jews- cases of brutality are never diminished by other cases of brutality- but a recognition of the misery of all the victims of Nazism. Other forces seemed to have been at work, either complementary or instead of antisemitism.

Of course, Goldhagen does not ignore alternative explanations altogether-

• having absolute power over Jews ⁽³³⁹⁾,
• regarding Jews as communists ^{(144, 149, 393)},
• general mercilessness towards Jews ⁽⁴⁴⁰⁾,
• Jews regarded as criminals ⁽³⁹⁴⁾,
• Jews as enemies ^{(241, 389, 396)},
• following authority ⁽³⁸³⁾,

but he does not systematically evaluate them.

The advantage of these complementary aspects is that they are not only able to explain why Germans killed groups and people other than Jews but why other national groups became perpetrators as well. And though Goldhagen admits that different groups of perpetrators might have been influenced by different factors ⁽⁴⁰⁹⁾, he holds that true just for non-Germans. Goldhagen categorically rules out influences that would have moved Germans to become perpetrators other than an eliminationist antisemitism ⁽⁴⁴⁵⁾.

Excursus II- Historical accuracy and linguistic style:

Goldhagen’s work contains a number of historical inaccuracies. The claim that Jews suffered more and had a higher mortality rate has already been dealt with. Into the same category falls his observation that the work of Jews in work camps was irrational and wasted ^{(283, 427)}. This is certainly true, but not only for Jews but for a lot of physical work done in concentration camps by any prisoner- not productivity was the aim but to wear out the prisoner (Bauche, U. et al:Arbeit durch Vernichtung, Hamburg, 1991, p.169ff).

Goldhagen states that the concentration camps were originally designed as a penal system, evolving just late in the war into an industrial complex ⁽²⁸⁸⁾. This is incorrect. The sites of concentration camps had always been chosen with a specific view on economic factors- the first concentration camps were next to swamps that were to be drained- the famous “peat bog soldiers”- and for instance Neuengamme was designed as a brick factory where clay was found, Buchenwald was situated next to a quarry.

On page 368 Goldhagen includes a map that shows an alleged death march from Neuengamme to Bergen Belsen to Lübeck to Sandborstel. Even though Goldhagen makes no direct reference to the map the general tenor of the chapter seem to suggest another death march of Jewish prisoners. This is wrong. There have been evacuations from Neuengamme to Bergen Belsen, but they did not include a substantial number of Jews, the prisoners did not march but were transported like cattle in trains and no evacuation trail left Bergen Belsen in direction of Lübeck. The route on the map shows not one march but three separate evacuation routes from Neuengamme. (Bauche, U. et al:Arbeit durch Vernichtung, Hamburg, 1991, p.232ff).

Goldhagen claims that guards of the Helmbrecht camp were given specific orders by Himmler on the 14^th of April not to kill any more prisoners ⁽³⁵⁶⁾. Other evidence suggests that Himmler had given the orders to evacuate all camps with the specific order that no prisoner should fall into the hands of the Allies (Bauche, U. et al: Arbeit durch Vernichtung, Hamburg, 1991, p. 235).

Regarding a death march to Gardelegen Goldhagen uses a quote that seems to suggest that 5,000 to 6,000 people were pushed into a barn and subsequently burned to death. Although it is right that a large number of people were burned alive in the barn, official American sources give a total toll of 1016 (Ausstellungskatalog: Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, Berlin, 1990, p. 153)

The amount of incorrectness in Goldhagen’s thesis invokes doubts about the general accuracy of facts that Goldhagen presents to support his argument.

Goldhagen’s writing style is at times close to being irritating, to say the least. His constant repetition of points he considers important has more the virtue of propaganda than of a scientific analysis. The diagram about the type of perpetrator’s action appears twice ^{(17 + 367)}, Goldhagen specifically mentions that the non-Jews were treated better than the Jews 14 times in the space of six pages ^{(340 to 346)}. But Goldhagen’s greatest obsession is his use of the word “German”. Due to his rather bizarre reason to follow the logic of alehouse politicians he makes no distinction between various groups of people involved in the Holocaust. And even though it may be very true that “we do not hesitate to refer to the citizens of the United States who fought in Vietnam to achieve the aims of their government as “Americans”(487), it is doubtful whether scientific analyses about the involvement of America in Vietnam would refer to the various groups and institutions from GI to Officers to the Pentagon, the media, the population in the Bible belt, the students in Kent State University and others just as “Americans”.

Due to Goldhagen’s elaborate und indiscriminate use of the word “German” some passages become very awkward to read as a passage on page 348 illustrates:

“Why did the Germans not provide the Jewish women with more than starvation rations ? It was not because of the general food shortage of the time, or the frequent unwillingness of local German citizens to spare food for Jewish “subhumans”. (…) German civilians responded to the supplications of the Jews for food and water, only to be met the interdictions of the guards. (…) On the previous day, the Germans had given the Jews no food whatsoever after a full day’s march (…).”

To whom does “the Germans” in the last sentence refer to ? Does it refer to the German guards accompanying the death march or to local German civilians, does it refer to the same group of local German civilians or a different one ?

A similar irritating feature of Goldenhagen’s use of the word “German” is its use out of proportion. On page 365 for instance the word “German” appears not fewer than 18 times.

There is much to be said about analytical clarity and readability.

Conclusion: Goldhagen’s Holocaust account has one positive aspect: it is so nicely simple, the good guys versus the bad guys, us versus them. The Nazis proposed and the Germans willingly accepted. Everything. 

The negative aspects are numerous, there is a

• lack of focus- is the thesis about perpetrators, policemen, German society, antisemitism ?
• lack of structure- descriptions and analysis are mixed together, no structures of the phenomenon Nazism, antisemitism et al.;
• lack of complexity- the accounts are mono-dimensional, mono-causal without any consideration of possible repercussions, of mutual influence of the various actors and institutions;
• lack of historical accuracy.

Was there a unique antisemitism that was the cause for the Holocaust and the behaviour of the perpetrators or could other causes explain the behaviour as well ? Was the only proper name for the German perpetrators German rather than Nazi, soldier, prison officer, policeman ?

The book leaves too many questions unanswered in order to agree with Goldhagen. Furthermore, Goldhagen’s thesis is torn between the introduction of the concept of "eliminationist antisemitism" and the (re-)establishment of the voluntary nature of the actions of the perpetrators. Either the perpetrators were moved by an antisemitism that was part of the cognitive and value structure of their society and just acted accordingly to what they came to accept as self-evident truths or they had a free choice and made conscious decisions about taking part in the extermination process. In this antagonism between structure and agency Goldhagen tries an explanation analogue to the structuration concept: "The structures, however, are always interpreted by the actors." ⁽²⁰⁾ But structures and motivation are not sufficient. The third factor to induce perpetrators to act is the opportunity to do so. ⁽²⁰⁾

But is that finding really that revolutionary as Goldhagen claims ? Any society combines positive and negative qualities because the human being who is the base of any society is combining positive and negative qualities. Throughout history, negative straits of nationalism, racism (which includes antisemitism), religious and political fanaticism, arrogance, hate, envy and greed among others had gotten the better of people time and again, resulting in war, starvation and misery. It is a futile task to try to establish the dominance of one negative quality over the other since any of them can easily lead to the same outcome. And, as Goldhagen himself is ready to admit, history  “amply testifies to the ease with people can extinguish the lives of others, and even take joy in their death.” (14) Is it therefore of any importance whether atrocities are sparked off by a specific antisemitism is centuries old or just newly established ? Does it really matter whether atrocities are motivated predominantly by antisemitism with sprinklings of anti-communism, nationalism, racism and blind obedience or whether the make-up of the events leading up to the crimes comes in a different composition ?

Goldhagen argues that without the Germans, and since the Germans were bearer of a specific eliminationism, hence without eliminationist antisemitism there would have been no Holocaust ⁽⁶⁾. That is most likely true. But without the fanaticism fuelled by racial arrogance, national supremacism, pitilessness, blind obedience, ignorance and complacency of Germans and other people the Holocaust may have remained just a thought in the heads of some people limited to alehouse discussions.  

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