Hitler's Willing Executioners, p230
Jan. 26th, 2011 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerYes I am going to keep making these posts. They make me feel better, ok?
Somewhat calmer now, and if nothing else reading this rubbish this is a good exercise. Like a spot the difference game, only it's 'spot all the abysmal so-called research' game. It's slightly better now, as I've gotten into the bulk of his book which is mostly loving described atrocities which run along in any order and make the book come across as anti-german propaganda more than anything (why was this book so popular in Germany? It's like Der Sturmer being popular in Israel). There's not much evidence, but then there's not much of a point being made. Did note how Goldhagen skimmed hurridly over the Ukrainian killing squads, and hasn't as yet mentioned the happy enthusiasm of the various occupied communities in handing their Jewish neighbours over to the Germans. Some decents points being made here and there, but they're swamped by the bull and torture-porn padding, and I've seen them done better elsewhere.
There's also one thing which sticks in my mind. I saw a post-war cartoon some time ago, it showed a well dressed man (I think he was supposed to be English) reading a newspaper about the liberation of Belsen. The man is saying "This is disgraceful! These Germans ought to be shot!" and across from him is a starved camp survivor, who's saying "Some of us are German, friend."
And I think this is what I most hate about this book. It buys into the very ideals it claims to denounce. Goldhagen's constant use of the term 'German' to describe those committing the atrocities (not SS, Nazi, or anything else) actually justifies the very exclusion of Jewish people from Germany which he is arguing against. The nazis said 'You are Jews, you cannot be Germans' that this sod is agreeing with them! Okay, he's doing it from the exact opposite direction, but again he describes the Jewish population of Germany in the exact same way as the Nazis: as Jews first, and Germans second (if at all).
One of the very first things the Nazis did was forbid the Jewish people from being considered as German, and Goldhagen agrees.
Somewhat calmer now, and if nothing else reading this rubbish this is a good exercise. Like a spot the difference game, only it's 'spot all the abysmal so-called research' game. It's slightly better now, as I've gotten into the bulk of his book which is mostly loving described atrocities which run along in any order and make the book come across as anti-german propaganda more than anything (why was this book so popular in Germany? It's like Der Sturmer being popular in Israel). There's not much evidence, but then there's not much of a point being made. Did note how Goldhagen skimmed hurridly over the Ukrainian killing squads, and hasn't as yet mentioned the happy enthusiasm of the various occupied communities in handing their Jewish neighbours over to the Germans. Some decents points being made here and there, but they're swamped by the bull and torture-porn padding, and I've seen them done better elsewhere.
There's also one thing which sticks in my mind. I saw a post-war cartoon some time ago, it showed a well dressed man (I think he was supposed to be English) reading a newspaper about the liberation of Belsen. The man is saying "This is disgraceful! These Germans ought to be shot!" and across from him is a starved camp survivor, who's saying "Some of us are German, friend."
And I think this is what I most hate about this book. It buys into the very ideals it claims to denounce. Goldhagen's constant use of the term 'German' to describe those committing the atrocities (not SS, Nazi, or anything else) actually justifies the very exclusion of Jewish people from Germany which he is arguing against. The nazis said 'You are Jews, you cannot be Germans' that this sod is agreeing with them! Okay, he's doing it from the exact opposite direction, but again he describes the Jewish population of Germany in the exact same way as the Nazis: as Jews first, and Germans second (if at all).
One of the very first things the Nazis did was forbid the Jewish people from being considered as German, and Goldhagen agrees.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-29 12:34 pm (UTC)Especially if we factor in German particularism.
You ask why they were re-assigned instead of being required to go shoot people when they didn't want to be? The reason's pretty simple: the Nazi dictatorship *always* had an element of seeking popular approval about it. It was mostly a veneer, but it was there. That German soldiers were shooting people, however, is no great surprise. It's not like they were entirely shy about that method in WWI, and their vandalism in France in 1918 also shows that Nazism was a continuation to some degree of an existing trend but took Jew-hatred to a level not seen since Luther.