Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 14:30:30 EST
From: "H-German Ed. Norm Goda"
Reply to: H-NET List on German History
To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN
Subject: Goldhagen Finale
THERE ARE FOUR MESSAGES BELOW. A REMINDER: BARRING
UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES, THIS WILL BE THE LAST POSTING
ON GOLDHAGEN TO THE LIST. FUTURE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE
WELCOMED, BUT POSTED AT THE H-GERMAN WWW SITE -- ng
1.
Submitted by: Paul Lawrence Rose
One of the main features of Goldhagen's book is its insistence that
German antisemitism is a peculiar phenomenon and linked directly to
the Holocaust. My own book "Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany
from Kant to Wagner" (Princeton, 1990) argued strongly for the
existence of a peculiar German antisemitism, rooted in German
concepts of freedom and humanity (viz. in the desire for a "human
revolution"). Though Goldhagen cites this book as the sole book in
English on German antisemitism with which he concurs, he does not
mention the Afterword which was attached to the new edition, retitled
"German Question/Jewish Question..." (Princeton, 1992).
The Afterword deals with the Holocaust's relation to German
antisemitism. The question of the continuity of the German
antisemitisms of the 19th and 20th centuries is rather more
complicated than Goldhagen would allow. There are certainly
connections from Wagner to the Holocaust, though not perhaps the
obvious ones usually alleged, but rather hidden, devious,
subterranean, "deep" ones. I mention this bcause I have lately been
accused of Goldhagenism. Though I did indeed anticipate his concept
of a German "eliminationist" approach to the Jewish Question (which I
termed "destructionist") and though I also approve his book's
redirection of historical focus for understanding the Holocaust back
where it belongs, namely to German culture and mentality, I would not
agree with all of his arguments and would appreciate it if my current
critics would take the time to look at my Afterword on the subject,
or indeed at my subsequent book on Wagner (just reissued by Yale)
where it is taken further.
Paul Lawrence Rose
Penn State University
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2.
Submitted by: Michael T. Allen
mta2@po.cwru.edu
*****A Very Qualified Defense of Goldhagen*****
It may indeed be true that Daniel Goldhagen's _Hitler's Willing
Executioners_ will go the way of Arno Mayer's _Why Did the Heavens
Not Darken?_ as Yehuda Bauer warns, but I would like to post a
qualified defense of Goldhagen. In the paragraphs below I argue
that we should take the following aspects of Goldhagen's work
seriously: 1) his emphasis on the moral engagement and ideological
motivation of perpetrators and 2) his methodical and graphic analysis
of cruelty.
Even if Goldhagen's main thrust is preposterous, his use of
historical scholarship contemptuous, and his media promotion
obnoxious, nevertheless I think _Willing Executioners_ has some
useful aspects. In light of the tendentious way in which Goldhagen
uses secondary literature, his specious methodological approach to
primary sources, and his repeated lectures delivered in footnotes to
we woefully misguided and perniciously obfuscating historians, I
personally find it hard not to respond in kind. In spite of this, I
question both the intellectual merit and effectiveness of, for
instance, telling Goldhagen in front of a public audience that his
Harvard advisors should not have granted him a PhD, of claiming that
he wrote _Willing Executioners_ only to garner fame, etc. Furthermore,
some of the questions and methods that Goldhagen deploys are worthy
of serious consideration.
For one, I believe there can be little doubt that scholars of the
genocide have neglected ideological motivations in National
Socialist society. Few would want to return, as Goldhagen does, to
pin the sole motivation for genocide on a monomaniacal
"eliminationist," "demonological," and "hallucinatory" anti-Semitism.
Yet what does existing scholarship offer as riposte? "Polycratic"
interpretations of National Socialist institutions have largely
reduced complex issues of human agency in modern organizations to
petty infighting and Machterweiterungen to be accounted for by game
theory. The many flaws of Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann in Jerusalem_
have long been exposed, but the image of banal actors devoid of moral
conscience lingers. Perhaps no other scholarly movement has done more
to point to the mass complicity/passive acceptance of German society
in Nazi crimes than Alltagsgeschichte.
Ian Kershaw's _Popular Opinion & Political Dissent in the Third
Reich_ is likely the most widely used text in this genre. His
contrast between Bavarian complaisance toward the transport of Jews
as opposed to their strident opposition to euthanasia deftly shows
that people's belief in what was right and wrong set limits on Nazi
programs. Nazi activists enjoyed success only when they pursued
goals that the vast majority of the public had, at a very minimum,
_nothing_ against ideologically. "Their latent anti-Semitism and
apathy sufficed to allow the increasingly criminal 'dynamic' hatred
of the Nazi regime the autonomy it needed to set in motion the
holocaust" (372). Yet my 20th century German students at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland invariably responded to Kershaw's
emphasis on material interest among "ordinary Germans," the ebb and
flow of their disgruntledness, and their overwhelming indifference.
The most profound conclusions of Alltagsgeschichte seem to be those
that _are not there_. Having set out to investigate popular
resistance and opposition, it has found almost none. Its assertions
about what was there seem more tenuous. Ideological motivation is
never denied by Kershaw, but he downplays its importance: "The
evidence we consider suggests strongly that the material conditions
directly affecting everyday lives of the population provided the most
continuous, and usually the most dominant, influence upon the
formation of political opinion." (373)
When I was in Berlin in 1993, Peter Fritzsche commented upon this
trend in Alltagsgeschichte with a paper at the Technische
Universtaet titled "Where did All the Nazis Go?" The audience did not
respond with favor. I had my students read an article by Robert
Gellately in order to contrast his emphasis on participation with
Kershaw's focus on dissent.. _The Gestapo and German Society:
Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-45_ has unified an institutional history
of the Gestapo, popular participation, and social history in one
study. Yet here again, the book seldom offers judgments about
ideological motivation. In various articles Gellately warns against
searching for a "manageable set of motives" that may have driven
perpetrators to cooperate in and prosecute Nazi policies ("'A
Monstrous Uneasiness': Citizen Participation and Persecution of the
Jews in Nazi Germany," in _Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the
Holocaust in a Changing World_). There need not be merely ONE
Sonderweg but any number of Wege. Yet, in the end, Gellately opts to
stress the banality and petty interest of perpetrators instead of any
shifting plexus of values that may have mobilized their collective
action ("Gestapo und Terror. Perspektiven auf die Sozialgeschichte
des nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystems," in _"Sicherheit" und
"Wohlfahrt" Polizei, Gesellschaft und Herrschaft im 19. und 20.
Jahrhundert_).
Little over a year ago a Goldhagen-like, Holocaust media hit
appeared in Germany, Wolfgang Sofsky's _Die Ordnung des Terrors_.
Like the American Political Science Association did for Goldhagen, a
professional society in the social sciences awarded this book a
prize. Yet Sofsky's conclusions are diametrically opposite to those
of _Willing Executioners_ Sofsky goes even further than either
Kershaw and Gellately and warns that any historical conclusions
whatsoever about ideological motivation are delusions. _Ordnung des
Terrors_ argues that the concentration camp, as a structure for the
realization of absolute power, "gruendet auf sich selbst" (p, 33),
that is without intellectual basis or human initiative. In only one
of many contradictions, he cites Theodor Eicke to illustrate the
importance of consensus in the concentration camps: "Die Grundlage
unseres inneren Zusammenhalts ist die Kameradschaft, wie sie sich
unter Nationalsozialisten auf Grund unserer Weltanschauung zwangs-
lauefig ergeben muss" (342ff); yet Sofsky claims from the outset that
"Der Rekurs auf die Ideologie [i.e. despite all Eicke's assertions to
the contrary] ist eine hilflose Fehldeutung post festum, gespeist von
dem Irrglauben, dass es fuer alles eine intellektuelle Begruendung,
einen historischen Sinn geben muesse" (33). Instead of ideological
motives, Sofsky resorts to the stock image of banal actors motivated
by petty gain and the pursuit of power to explain their involvement
in genocide: "Keiner der Kommandanten hat das Konzentrationslager
primaer als historische Mission begriffen. Sie waren Karrieristen,
Technokraten, korrupte Kriminelle, beflissene Befehlsempfaenger"
(32). It seems to matter as little to Sofsky as it does to Goldhagen
that plenty of historical evidence exists which disproves his
overdrawn conclusions.
Therefore, in qualified defense of Goldhagen, I hope that we do not
dismiss his questions even if we discredit his answer. Sofsky,
Kershaw and Gellately would seem to point toward consensus rather
than disagreement concerning the genocide. Goldhagen is right to seek
ideological grounds among the vast majority in German society who
either willingly participated in or raised no objections against
inhumane crimes. Historians should take up the challenge and search
for more credible insights into consensus and motivation than those
Goldhagen profers.
Methodologically Goldhagen's work is also of interest. He analyzes
cruelty as evidence of perpetrator's identification with their work.
He also concludes, based on his analysis, that quite ordinary Germans
generally amplified their cruelty even though they attempted to avoid
or lessen their complicity in other aspects of their duties. His
graphic presentations of Nazi atrocities is, to my mind, novel. Of
course, gory details are nothing new to Holocaust literature, but
usually authors deploy details only in order to evoke an emotional
response in their readers or in the hopes that suffering shall not be
forgotten. A book from which Goldhagen probably first took some of
his photographic evidence, Ernst Klee, et al., eds., _The Good Old
Days_, uses graphic detail in exactly this way. Such conventional
gore may augment our empathy with the victims but adds little to our
understanding of the perpetrators. No doubt many of Goldhagen's
readers are acting like the "ghoul tourists" who have rushed to
Bosnia to witness its devastation after years of war; they will seek
and find the emotional charge of horror in the pages of _Willing
Executioners_. But Goldhagen aims at a legitimate intellectual
point. The brutality of the Holocaust was visceral and revolting. In
many cases, it was also unordered and at times forbidden. To engage
in it day after day took some degree of will power when perpetrators
had ample opportunity to desist. That perpetrators acclimatized
themselves to horror in order to remain perpetrators is indeed
evidence of their active--not passive or coerced--identification
with the tasks of genocide.
Contrary to much current criticism, this aspect of Goldhagen's work
is based on substantial if not impressive primary research into
post-war trial records deposited at Ludwigsburg. Some of his research
is also original in the three sections on forced labor, the Police
Battalions, and death marches--including his use of photographs. Even
if he has couched his criticism of Christopher Browning (whose work
Goldhagen caricatures) in such shrill terms that we find it hard to
take him seriously, Goldhagen rightly criticizes _Ordinary Men_ for
_not_ using visual evidence in the way _Willing Executioners_ does.
In contrast to Goldhagen's Police Battalions chapters, his
presentation of death marches and forced labor treats subjects that
have seldom appeared in English and never, to my knowledge, in a
text accessible to a wide audience. Yehuda Bauer suggested at the
USHMM that Goldhagen's book will go the way of Arno Mayer's. I
sincerely hope that this will not be the case. Mayer's emphasis on
the importance of the war for the radicalization of the genocide is
still quite topical and relevant, if not for the reasons that Mayer
foresaw. In addition, Mayer's emphasis on anti- Bolshevism in the
mobilization of mass support for policies of murder has been born
out: Christopher Browning, Christian Streit (in the case of the
Wehrmacht), Avraham Barkai (in the case of business elites), and
others have shown how easily Nazi elites conflated anti-Bolshevism
and anti-Semitism and thus built bridges to crucial communities that
might not have otherwise participated so eagerly in genocide. I hope
that historians will not take Goldhagen's most inane conclusions and
methods as his only conclusions and methods.
Michael Allen
Georgia Institute of Technology
mta2@po.cwru.edu
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3.
Submitted by: Alastair Thompson
I very much agree with Richard Levy's comments on Daniel Goldhagen's
distorted and frequently ignorant depiction of the position of
German Jews in the Kaiserreich. Literature central to the subject -
like Levy on Anti-Semite political parties, David Peal on rural
anti-Semitism, Delores Augustine on the Jewish business elite - is
passed by in blissful ignorance, in favour of a tendentious
source-mining of anything that might appear to support his
assertions.
In addition to the errors and shortcomings justifiably highlighted
by Levy the following Goldhagen claims are false or misleading.
1. 'Professional and economic organizations were institutionally
antisemitic' (p.60) This is true of the Agrarian League (but not
necessarily of all its 300,000 members) and many, but not all
student associations. It is untrue for the great majority of
commercial, industrial, and professional associations. Indeed Jews or
those of Jewish descent played an important role in the national,
regional and local leadership of many of these organisations.
Goldhagen cites Shulamit Volkov's work on Master Artisans to support
his assertions, obviously unaware that Volkov has subsequently
accepted the arguments of David Blackbourn and Friedrich Langer that
most German artisans did not share and follow the views of
anti-Semitic functionaries. Goldhagen provides no credible evidence
for his assertion that popular associational life revolved around
'the Jewish question'. Nor, in passing, is it plausible to suggest
that most Wilhelmine Germans had never met a Jew.
2. It is by no means 'incontestable that racial anti-Semitism was
the salient form of antisemitism in Germany' (p. 74). Many Wilhelmine
Germans, from Wilhelm II down, viewed Jews primarily in religious
terms. Similarly the statement 'racial antisemitism was already de
rigueur in Protestant circles. And it had made inroads even among
Catholics' (p. 74) is doubly misleading. It greatly overstates
racial anti-Semitism amongst German Protestants. Similarly, whilst
German Protestants accounted for most anti-Semitic writing and
anti-Semitic party voting, anti- Semitism as a popular sentiment was
probably more widespread amongst German Catholics, who were more
rural and had fewer shared cultural assumptions with German Jews,
than German Protestants.
3. Goldhagen appears to lack even a rudimentary knowledge of the
geography of nineteenth century Germany ('across Germany from Prussia
to the Rhineland to Bavaria' p. 60). He certainly has no grasp of its
political structures and culture. It was not German popular opinion
which determined the composition of the Prussian officer corps (p.
73), but the the Prussian king and military elite. As well as
excluding Jews they barred political opponents and favoured those of
noble rather than bourgeois background. These discriminations were
repeatedly denounced by the majority in the Reichstag. Goldhagen also
misinterprets debates in Wilhelmine Germany about the 'Volk'. In a
large majority of cases this had nothing to do with race, but was a
critique of authoritarian aspects of Prussia-Germany demanding
greater public influence and accountability, and attacking Junker
privilege. True, obligations were also placed on the citizen
(Staatsbuerger), but only a very small minority of commentators felt
German Jews were in any way unable to meet these obligations.
Goldhagen grossly overstates the popular support for German
Conservatism (pp. 75-76) The share of the vote for the German
Conservative Party continually declined since 1893, sinking to 9.3%
in 1912, barely a quarter of SPD support, and almost a third less
than the left liberals whom Goldhagen dismisses as a tiny ineffectual
minority. Goldhagen's conversion of the National Liberals into
supporters of 'eliminational anti-Semitism' by the 1890s (p. 59 and
p. 74) is equally preposterous. If this were so, why would the party
elect as leaders Ernst Bassermann and Gustav Stresemann, who both had
Jewish wives?
In summary, Goldhagen's chapters on anti-Semitism demonstrate little,
apart from his limitations in absorbing and analysing historical
evidence. Just as the sections on the Holocaust itself are far less
original than they pretend, the material in part one does not add
anything to what is already generally known and accepted: that the
elements of Nazi ideology, including racial anti-semitism, were
already being voiced, but that they attracted relatively little
popular credibility and resonance in Wilhelmine Germany.
As far as general reactions to Goldhagen's book in Britain are
concerned the booksellers I know seem pleased that the publicity
efforts of the author and his publisher have have increased their
turn-over. However, public debate seems relatively muted, with much
media coverage largely reporting comments from America and Germany.
As elsewhere, those with a specialist knowledge of German history
have been overwhelmingly critical, and Goldhagen was justifiably
described on the BBC as offering an unconvincing 'new simpliticism'.
The German Historical Institute in London is organising a debate on
the Holocaust on 21st May 1996 at 5pm, with speakers including Ian
Kershaw, Lothar Kettenacker, Arnold Paucker and Reinhard Ruerup.
Alastair Thompson
(alastair.thompson@durham.ac.uk)
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4.
Submitted by: Roland Wagner
David Lindenfeld commented:
>>....I do not mean to endorse Goldhagen's overly
simplistic reading of German history and political culture.
But I do believe he poses some important *questions* about
the Holocaust and the prevalent explanations of it.....
Goldhagen questions the adequacy of the conventional
explanations as to why large numbers of perpetrators
participated in genocide (pp.379-85). The explanations of
peer pressure and the tendency to obey authority a la
Milgram, on which Browning heavily relies, are too general
to fit the specific and extreme case of the Holocaust. They
may explain the motives of ordinary men, but not their
extraordinary deeds... Goldhagen rightly points us in the
direction of what he calls "cognition and values....<<
Some comments on the points raised by David Lindenfeld:
Christopher Browning identified several factors that were relevant to
explaining the behavior of the Ordnungspolizei -- such as their
demographic background (limited education, marginal employment
status), the possibility that they were selected by the SS because
they may have been more malleable and vulnerable to authority, peer
pressure, the social bond that forms between soldiers in stressful
situations, the feeling that requesting transfer to less horrible
duties would have been tantamount to moral condemnation of one's
fellows, the need to display "strength," the fear of the public
brow-beating and harrassment that they would have been subjected to
if they requested transfer, the fear of the overt threats by some of
the commanding officers, desensitization to the horror through
repetition, and so on.
Why, precisely, are these factors too general to explain the behavior
of the Ordnungspolizei? And further, why, precisely, would an appeal
to cognition and values offer any more *specific* an explanation? I
often wonder, when I hear people ponder how "inexplicable" the
Holocaust was, exactly what type of explanation they are really
searching for. I also wonder if there will be such puzzlement for
decades about the factors underlying the genocides in Rwanda, or
Bosnia, or about the genocidal policies enacted against ethnic
minorities in the Soviet Union.
A phenomenon as complex as the Holocaust requires a multi-causal
approach, as Omer Bartov so admirably pointed out in his review of
Goldhagen in the April 29 issue of _The New Republic_. A fundamental
weakness of Goldhagen's model is that he ignores the multi-causal
approach to human behavior (which has become a virtual truism in the
social sciences) in favor of a sweeping unicausal model, fixated on
national character.
No one has denied the crucial importance of anti-Semitism in the
Holocaust. The issue is whether anti-Semitism can legitimately be
inflated into some hypothetical missing-link in German national
character, a centuries-old integrating theme, and whether this
cognitive factor was a sufficient condition, in and of itself, to
explain the Holocaust.
-- Roland Wagner, San Jose State University