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Title: A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman G. Finkelstein, Ruth Bettina Birn ISBN: 0-8050-5872-9 Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The "Goldhagen Thesis" Refuted.
Comment: Among the academically politically correct, a particularly noxious notion has been revised in the work of Daniel Goldhagen in his book _Hitler's Willing Executioners_. This is the racist idea of the "barbaric Hun", popular among the British and Allied forces in the "Great War". Like such precursors as Theodor Kaufman, writer of the notorious tract _Germany Must Perish!_, Goldhagen has revised the idea that the entire German nation was to blame for Hitler, all Germans being possessed of a crazed anti-Semitism. According to Goldhagen, it is the ordinary Germans who were the most bestial in their brutality towards the Jews (and of course Goldhagen focuses conveniently only on the Jews, arguing that the Holocaust of the Jews was a unique historical event without precedent, indeed outside of time). But, then according to Goldhagen, this mass madness was magically to disappear with the end of the war and the defeat of Hitler; indeed, the modern Germans are the very champions of liberty courtesy of the reconstitution of their nation with the help of the Allied forces. Fortunately, many of those who are not blinded by political correctness can see through the absurdity of this farce presented as historical thesis. In this book, two essays are presented which attempt to refute Goldhagen's thesis. The first is by Norman Finkelstein, himself a Jew and descended from survivors of the Holocaust. The second is by Ruth Bittina Birn, another expert on the historical tragedy which subsisted in the Third Reich. Both essays attempt to show through actually examining the historical record the house of cards which the Goldhagen thesis proves to be. Upon closer examination it becomes apparent that many of the German officers were not possessed by madness but indeed looked upon their activities as part of a disgusting, albeit necessary, part of the war bureaucracy. In addition, like most who focus on the Holocaust, the role of other social groups persecuted by Hitler and later by the communists who were to seize control of half of Germany after the war is totally ignored by Goldhagen. Finkelstein brings out some interesting points in comparing various historical tragedies including many which exist in modern America and within the modern world with those that occurred during World War II. Indeed, so much has been made of the horrendous events which occurred during this war that it has become difficult to discern the truth, from the haze. Goldhagen represents an unfortunate turn in revisionist scholarship, attempting to swamp the American public with yet more horrendous tales of Holocaust attrocities. Yet, while this occurs the attrocities of the communists (particularly under Stalin, far greater than those of Hitler and his regime) are entirely ignored by academic scholarship (if not outright denied). Why is this? Perhaps it is just a further indication of the kind of rabid political correctness that exists among the revisionist left which holds such sway in academia. While both Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Bittina Birn are both leftists of a different sort, their essays do make some valuable points about the need for historical truth. Unfortunately, they both seem to be under the spell that Hitler's Reich was a "right wing regime", even though such a regime did contain many leftist/collectivist elements. This is unfortunate; however, it remains a minor criticism in an otherwise well written refutation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent
Comment: Arguing that much of the Holocaust literature contains gross misinformation and sheer lies, Finkelstein provides an important insight into Goldhagen's insidious attempt to distort historical facts. According to Finkelstein, Goldhagen's book is characterized by numerous contradictions, exaggerations and serious misrepresentation of the facts. For example, Goldhagen asserts in his book that all Germans were belligerent anti-semitists who when given the chance tortured every Jew they could come across. This of course is a gross overgeneralization given that the majority of serious historians agree that many Germans did not commit any enormities against Jewish people. Having said that, Finkelstein does not claim that they were not anti-semitists. On the contrary, many Germans were anti-semitists but they still chose not to take part in the extermination of Jews. Goldhagen however asserts that being a passive observer automatically makes you a perpetrator who is as guilty as the person committing the actual atrocities. If this is the case, then most people are perpetrators because we all sometimes witness heinous crimes and gross injustices not being able to stop them. Goldhagen further holds that the Holocaust was a unique event. Note that a unique event must contain unique victims. Thus, according to Goldhagen, Jews were unique victims. What about the gypsies who were murdered during the Holocaust? Why aren't they the unique victims? Why aren't they included in the history books? Distorting the history in this cynical way as Goldhagen does is morally reprehensible. Not all Germans actively participated in the Holocaust. Blaiming the entire nation is preposterous and indicative of spurious scholarship.
Rating: 1
Summary: Anything to make a buck
Comment: This ad hominum book is an attempt to white wash the German people who had the virus to murder these Jews and did it. Others, Poles, Ukrainians etc. contracted the disease, if you will, and the Holocaust was under way. It is of course very complicated and Goldhagen makes his arguments complicated, as they should be. To cite sources is allowable in historical writing I believe, but to conclude from these and many other sources is not what Goldhagen does; he leaves many doors open for exploration, exploration within the thesis that he supports with very firm evidence. This atrocity is no ordinary instance of mass murder; it has far reaching, ancient roots, links to powerful organized religions, pseudo- Western and Eastern cultures,socio- economics,philosophies of the most celebrated, Heidegger e.g., and an ideas of Christ that stem from the writings of the early Fathers of Christianity, and their interpretation of the Jews in the New Testament. This long problem of the Jews, this so-called evil people with their choseness gets superb, generous treatment by Professor Goldhagen. His discussion goes beyond sources, beyond the splitting of hairs over methods of interpretation according to the academy, which for decades has avoided and skimmed over and denied the Holocaust its place in any branch of life and practice.This crticism preens itself in front of Goldhagen's work as if this were a cocktail party debate in the faculty lounge. There is not a shred of compassion or an instance of reference to any suffering of these Jews in this book, with its artless center of whining and posing and avoiding the whole idea of evil. It is spirtiually and morally deadening. It repells with its insistance on winning. One reads these books all the time about the Holocaust now...disputing methodology and credibility. Daniel Goldhagen is not on trial here or his book; he knows what he is about in it and these authros do not know this, blinded by a desire for fame in the coprridors of their institutions.
Goldhagen has dared to call attention to it all, and in doing so draws out the low vibration people like Finkelstein who wouldn't have anyone to hear him if it weren't for Goldhagen's book. Finkelstein wouldn't have dared to attempt a piece on the Holocaust himself; he could not contain it , even a part of it in his angry head; Finkelstein is too shaken to deal with this subject as it is; he is maybe too horrified at the truth that his academy, his world,could be at heart insane.This book and its authors..lost balls in the high grass.
Bravo, Professor Goldhagen
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Title: Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen ISBN: 0679772685 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition by Norman G. Finkelstein, Norman Finkelstein ISBN: 1859844421 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Politics of Anti-Semitism by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair ISBN: 1902593774 Publisher: AK Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial by Richard J. Evans ISBN: 0465021530 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The "Goldhagen Effect": History, Memory, Nazism--Facing the German Past (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany) by Geoff Eley ISBN: 0472067524 Publisher: University of Michigan Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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