Cover of Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen · 1996

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This groundbreaking international bestseller lays to rest many myths about the Holocaust: that Germans were ignorant of the mass destruction of Jews, that the killers were all SS men, and that those who slaughtered Jews did so reluctantly. Hitler's Willing Executionersprovides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans.

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Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews during the 1930s popular. Drawing on a wealth of unused archival material, principally the testimony of the killers themselves, Goldhagen takes us into the killing fields where Germans voluntarily hunted Jews like animals, tortured them wantonly, and then posed cheerfully for snapshots with their victims. From mobile killing units to the camps to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion.

"Hitler's Willing Executionersis an original, indeed brilliant contribution to the...literature on the Holocaust."—New York Review of Books

"The most important book ever published about the Holocaust...Eloquently written, meticulously documented, impassioned...A model of moral and scholarly integrity."—Philadelphia Inquirer

Subject
historyhistoryMore like thisLess of thispoliticspoliticsMore like thisLess of thispsychologypsychologyMore like thisLess of thissociologysociologyMore like thisLess of thissocial sciencesocial scienceMore like thisLess of this
Genre
war and militarywar and militaryMore like thisLess of thishistorical fictionhistorical fictionMore like thisLess of thisHolocaustHolocaustMore like thisLess of thisWorld War IIWorld War IIMore like thisLess of thiscrimecrimeMore like thisLess of this
Themes
JewishJewishMore like thisLess of thishistoryhistoryMore like thisLess of thismilitary historymilitary historyMore like thisLess of thisreligionreligionMore like thisLess of thispoliticspoliticsMore like thisLess of this
Setting
HolocaustHolocaustMore like thisLess of thisWorld War IIWorld War IIMore like thisLess of thisGermanyGermanyMore like thisLess of thisAlemaniaAlemaniaMore like thisLess of thisEuropeEuropeMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
epic · 634 pages

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Liked Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust? Here’s where I’d start.

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