A Brief Note On Victim Or Victimizer?

in this paper i argue the opposing views of Daniel Goldhagen 's book Hitler 's Willing Executioners and Christopher Browning 's book ordinary Men. These books deal with the question of whether or not the average German soldiers and civilians were responsible for the holocaust. My research paper argues in favor of Goldhagen 's book, the average German was responsible for the participation of he holocaust. At the end of world war ll the Jewish community and the the rest of the world were crying for justice because of the devastation of there homes. The crimes committed by the Germans were cruel and someone had to pay. Several Nazi leaders were held accountable for the actions of the Germans. Were the Nazi leaders the ones responsible for

“Was German ‘Eliminationist Anti-Semitism” Responsible for the Holocaust?” is a fascinating and somewhat discouraging debate that explores the question of whether German anti-Semitism, instilled within citizens outside of the Nazi Party, played a vast role in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust . Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of “The Paradigm Challenged,” believes that it did; and argues quite convincingly that ordinary German citizens were duplicitous either by their actions or inactions due to the deep-seeded nature of anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. On the other hand, Christopher R. Browning, who has extensively researched the Holocaust, argues that the arguments of Goldhagen leaves out significant dynamics which were prevalent throughout most of Western and Eastern Europe during this period of history.

The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many

Consistent with Rossel, Germany has had a past of anti-Semitism, starting in 1542 when the great German Protestant leader Martin Luther wrote a booklet called Against the Jews and Their Lies. Even earlier the Catholic Churches had taught that the Jewish people killed Crist and should therefore be hated (10). Early teachings of anti-Semitism lead to a hating of the Jewish community, but with the German’s calling themselves the “Aryan Race” and the Jewish people calling themselves the “chosen one’s” there was bound to be competition on who was superior.

In the last few years, some publications have appeared that treats one group or another, yet the state of our knowledge about the perpetrators remains incomplete. We know little about many of the institutions of killing, little about many aspects of the perpetration of the genocide, and still less about the perpetrators themselves. As a consequence, popular and scholarly myths and misconceptions about the perpetrators abound, including the following. It is commonly believed that the Germans slaughtered Jews by and large in the gas chambers, and that without gas chambers, modern means of transportation, and efficient bureaucracies, the Germans would have been unable to kill millions of Jews. The belief persists that somehow only technology made horror on this scale possible. It is generally believed that gas chambers, because of their efficiency, were a necessary instrument for the genocidal slaughter, and that the Germans chose to construct the gas chambers in the first place because they needed more efficient means of killing the Jews. It has been generally believed that the perpetrators were primarily, overwhelmingly SS men, the most devoted and brutal Nazis. It has been held that had a German refused to kill Jews, then he himself would have been killed, sent to a concentration camp, or severely punished. All of these views, views that fundamentally shape people's understanding of the Holocaust, have been believed as though they were

Horror struck on January 30, 1933, when Germany assigned Adolf Hitler as their chancellor. Once Hitler had finally reached power he set out to complete one goal, create a Greater Germany free from the Jews (“The reasons for the Holocaust,” 2009). This tragedy is known today as, “The Holocaust,” that explains the terrors of our histories past. The face of the Holocaust, master of death, and leader of Germany; Adolf Hitler the most deceitful, powerful, well spoken, and intelligent person that acted as the key to this mass murder. According to a research study at the University of South Florida, nearly eleven million people were targeted and killed. This disaster is a genocide that was meant to ethnically cleanse Germany of the Jews. Although Jewish people were the main target they were not the only ones targeted; gypsies, African Americans, homosexuals, socialists, political enemies, communists, and the mentally disabled were killed (Simpson, 2012, p. 113). The word to describe this hatred for Jewish people is known as antisemitism. It was brought about when German philosophers denounced that “Jewish spirit is alien to Germandom” (“Antisemitism”) which states that a Jew is non-German. Many people notice the horrible things the Germans did, but most don’t truly understand why the Holocaust occurred. To truly understand the Holocaust, you must first know the Nazis motivations. Their motivations fell into two categories including cultural explanations that focused on ideology and

we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said, ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves; you are nyama (meat).’” This sense of superiority allowed the imperialists to justify to themselves the atrocities that they were committing. Furthermore, the Nazi regime slowly dehumanized these fellow Europeans until they were dehumanized enough so that they could be killed. This effort was done methodically, since it took an entire eight years after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 for the Jews to begin being killed in 1941. The length of time this took is interesting since it shows how the average German population did not have anti-semitic views they were willing to act upon until much after Hitler came to power. The Nazi’s were able to change this by incrementally disparaging Jews whether it be through the laws they passed or the math textbooks that were handed out to children. This systematic effort showed how the Nazi’s had to had to change the average German ways of thinking, while the imperialists implicitly believed they were superior immediately after arriving in the Congo.

The Holocaust took place during the late 1930s to the early 1940s, a time when many external and internal factors were affecting Germany and its people (Hill 1). Nevertheless Nazi leaders and common Germans killed almost two thirds of an estimated nine million Jewish people (Hill 2). One of the most puzzling questions about the Holocaust is why did common Germans take part? It is difficult to formulate an exact answer to the question because it deals with a whole nation, but many historians have hypothesized explanations related to the German’s unwilling and willing participation (Goldhagen 375).

Antisemitism, the hatred for the Jewish people, has been called the longest hatred in history. This history is deep rooted and has existed for thousands of years, taking different forms throughout its existence, and intensifying up until and through the Holocaust, to then diminish to an extent but still be prevalent in most societies. Antisemitism exists in different forms, religious, ethnic, and political. The presence of Christianity as the predominant religion in Europe can be noted as a driving factor in religious and ethnic antisemitism, as can the Holocaust. Whereas instances such as the Islamic view on Judaism can be

In the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tackles the question of why German citizens engaged in nefarious behavior that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish and other minorities throughout Europe. The question of what drove Germans to commit acts of genocide has been investigated by numerous historians, but unfortunately, no overarching answer for the crimes has yet been decided upon. However, certain theories are more popular than others. Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has expounded that the nature of the German culture before the Second World War was deeply embedded in anti-Semitic fervor, which in turn, acted as the catalyst for the events that would unfold into the Holocaust. It is at this

German anti-Semitism played the main role in Holocaust and extermination of Jewish population in Europe during World War 2. There are different views on this subject among historians. Some support the fact that German society was anti-Semitic and ordinary

Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.

With all of the false stereotypes being relayed to the people, hate towards the Jews became normal. Kurt Mobius, a German police officer working at a concentration camp in Poland, said, “I believed the propaganda that all Jews were criminal and subhumans” (Marcovitz 18). The constant anti-Semitic distortion made it easy for

For thousands of years, the Jewish People have endured negative stereotypes such as the "insects of humanity." As Sander Gilman pointed out, the Nazi Party labeled Jews as "insects like lice and cockroaches, that generate general disgust among all humanity" (Gilman 80).1 These derogative stereotypes, although championed by the Nazis, have their origins many centuries earlier and have appeared throughout Western culture for thousands of years. This fierce anti-Semitism specifically surfaced in Europe’s large cities in the early twentieth century, partially in conjunction with the growing tide of nationalism, patriotism, and xenophobia that sparked the First World

The horrible atrocities of the Holocaust remain an important subject in World history. Although very few people are alive from the Nazi era the horrors of the era still haunt Germany. Should the generations of German people be held collectively responsible for the Nazi crimes? If you were born in 1940 the start of the war, you would be 75 years old today. The younger generation of German’s look at that period of history differently than those alive post war. How the postwar Germans have dealt with the Nazi era of their country’s history has been a topic of controversy surrounding Gunter Grass. Gunter Grass for many years has accused German’s of not dealing with what happened in a realistic manner. He