Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

[grillo7]

7. I mostly disagree with Goldhagen...

I think the debate does shed light on how widespread anti-Semitism was at the time, and I think there are some interesting aspects of this that are generally overlooked in more traditional approaches. There was indeed a lot of civilian complicity. That said, I remember finding moments where the author unknowingly contradicted his own thesis. I don't think it was a simple as Goldhagen lays it out. We've seen this kind of thing play out all over the world, whereas Goldhagen wants to attribute something specific to Germany and Germans in his indictment. I think it more generally speaks to the potential dark hearts of men and women everywhere.