The question of how normal “good” people can change into committing horrible atrocities against their most innocent neighbors is complex and multi-faceted. I appreciate this book as being thoughtful. Conversely “Ordinary Men” addresses the same question but comes to entirely different conclusions. My thought is both conceptions are at least partially correct and there may be more factors that haven’t been thought of yet. Both books are good first starts.
I was wishing the interviewer would have followed the author much more than argue with him then we would have gotten more information about what he found out in his research.
Although Germany was the NAZI state it should be remembered that Hitler and many top NAZIs were Austrian and the German forces found many willing accomplices in the countries they occupied.For political reasons, it suited the western allies and the Soviet union to portray those in occupied Europe both east and west as heroic defenders of their Jewish populations when in reality that was not the case. One of the reasons why the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe was so successful was due to collaboration.Europe and Europeans wherever they settled have an inglorious reputation for vicious antisemitism which the NAZIs did not invent but exploited.
@@weignerleigner3037 In his book Goldhagen does not mince words, but says that hundreds of years of Christian anti-Semitism in Central Europe made the Holocaust easy. It would be silly to assume that Germans were completely changed in a few years. When the war and the Holocaust started, they were both Christian and anti-Semitic.
Bill you are Correct. A lot of the top Nazis were Austrian and some of the most evil people in history. Hitler, Eichmann, Alois Bruner, Odilo Globočnik, Franz Stangl, Aribert Heim, Hermann Höfle, Gustav Wagner, Franz Reichleitner, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Otto Wächter, Franz Novak, Siegfried Seidl
PLease find a copy of A Nation On Trial - The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Birn. It rips Goldhagen's rantings to shreds. As is noted by Finkelstein, the book contains no bibliography or any peer reviews re the veracity of its sources. Chomsky has referred to Goldhagen's work as "worthless to scholarship.
A very important book and a great interview. Great to hear this smart guy talk *g I'm from germany myself and my grandparents and their siblings were soldiers, civilians and refugees (expelled from the sudetenland at the end of the war) during WWII. And as Goldhagen said: Some of the perspectives, theories, facts and conclusions in his book were long over due to be "forced" upon the public here. His discription of the german view on the "third reich" is very accurate and this view is still very wide spread today. To shift the focus from the huge amount of ordinary people who participated, supported and benefited from the holocaust to an anonymous aparatus, to anonymous institutions and a hand full of high ranking, fanatical nazis.. As if Hitler and his staff were some alien race who landed in germany, bewitched the germans, forced them to commit a genocide and start a world war and then left again on 8th of may 45, leaving the germans without any memory of the past twelve years. Some of his conclusions were so obvious and... lively to me, from what I heard about the time from my own family. It just matched with the defense and the denial many germans built up against the accusation of willingly commiting a genocide and start a war and the guilt that these accusations and historical truths bring. Thank you, Mr. Goldhagen, for this book. And thank you, cunytv75 for uploading!
Hell, America lies to itself every day on what happened in 300 years of slavery, so it not difficult to do, to cover up a horrendous history. It's painful to realize what went on. Glad it's over but I don't blame Germany for being quiet. If the author looked more broadly on other societies it would be a more useful book
day tripper enormous difference between Germany and USA, as the American Civil war demonstrates...Slavery was decried as evil, immoral, and it was stopped...Entirely different. Only Southerners still distort history and refuse to come clean historically. As millions of books attest, the rest of the nation has no such qualms...
The interviewer is hostile toward his subject. I read this book when it came out. It has been largely forgotten. I have not forgotten, and it is disheartening and tragic to witness the same psychological warfare taking place today. It does not, however, absolve ordinary people from individual responsibility. Ask questions. Be curious when a group is being vilified. The interviewer showed his extreme anti-Jewish bias in this interview. Jewish people are used to defending their right to exist. Are there bad Jewish people? Yes. Are there bad British? Americans? Plug in your own ethnicity or race. We are back in 2022. Back … history is about to repeat itself.
"A tiny, tiny percentage of whites in the South owned slaves..." is not true. In South Carolina roughly fifty percent of whites owned slaves. It was even higher in other states, such as Mississippi.
I agree more with Christopher Brownings' conclusions regarding the dispositions, motives etc of the "ordinary" men who carried out such horrors during the war. You cannot focus on ONE cause/reason...that reflects an "all or nothing" thinking which is a psychological distortion. Humans are much more complex than that. My opinion is that a myriad of factors were in play and that not ALL of the German police carried out killings at first or not at all as proven by Browning. But I thoroughly agree that having a discussion on this matter is a beneficial thing. God bless~
One of the many reason Latinos of 22 Spanish speaking countries are oppressed is the same Reason Jews were attacked, they lacked a united voice. The divisions between our language, culture and dialects are so big we have been unable to bridge them. Publications likes La Voz, in Michigan and Joaquin in Ca can help bridge this gap. As a community we must gain our identity in the eyes of government representatives by voicing our concerns as one people. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the country and will soon be the majority in Texas and California, yet we are still under represented.Yet, our neighbors on the East Coast and across the country see us, the way Germans saw them. How is it possible that millions of American Citizens have failed to gain adequate representation? Why do we continue to permit none forked tongue politicians to use us to promote their interest and not our own? We have unwittingly become complicit in our own destruction. This is unacceptable.
He is focusing mainly on german jews, while most jews like 99 percent was not german that were killed. He presents Germany as the only antisemitic country. There were other countries like Rumania or Poland and other just as antisemitic. Antisemitism explains more than Browning wants to admit but it doesnt explain everything. Some people flipped pretty quickly towards helping nazis with the holocaust.
Poland had been tolerant and permissive of Jews right up until the partition. There’s a reason why they have a large Jewish community, one which the Germans wanted to exterminate.
To look away not notice when anyone is being killed is moral guilt in my book, to enable it by not opposing in whatever way one could is how most evil goes on.
For any interested, check out Chris Browning, who takes a broader, more nuanced social science viewpoint about this particular genocide which, of course, was indeed instrumented in anti-semitism. Its just that Goldhagen over-particularizes genocide to something uniquely German and anti-Jew. What went on in Darfur and Balkans had nothing to do with anti-semitism. The disease goes deeper in human nature/proclivities/vulnerabilities/susceptibilities. Jmho.
The interviewer is interrogating him on the existence of collective guilt among Germans as if it’s a simple answer. Like that’s not even what the book is about anyway and for the questions Goldhagen was trying to answer, it’s not an important question… goodness dude… stay on topic🙄
The question is how academia, press, entertainment industry are used as propaganda machine by a group to create an official truth that justifies whatever else
Much gratitude for adding another important piece to a very complex but important puzzle sorely in need of solution. I care less about the terrible events of the past than in preventing a repeat of such events in my own time and society.
Hmmm, Chomsky describes his book as "worthless to scholarship" And it really is. Here is the real scholarship that debunked Goldhagen's meandering drivel. collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib28446
In 1916, in a small town named Waco/Texas a black youth was lynched so cruel, like mankind didnt see it since middle age. And around them, there was a crowd of 15000 cheering people. No police intervened. Dear Mr. Goldhagen: Blame your own countrymen.
Goldhagen speaks to the fact that the entire German nation knew and participated in the holocaust. Comparing a singular act to what Goldhagen was speaking is absurd. Why would Goldhagen take responsibility or blame for a single act in which he did not participate? McSilver sounds like a Russian troll. 'Willing Executioners' was the most difficult book I have ever read.
+Adam Cortright Here Goldhagen defines "ordinary Germans" as essentially the average day-goers that own shops, walk the streets, and are the majority of the population of Germany 1932-1945
He was referring to the title of another books which addressed the historical evidence of Germans who were not driven by ideology, but who were ordered to shoot Jews, including women and children. Ordinary Men, like the German War, is based on primary reference such as diaries and letters from the perpetrators, showing how they justified what they were doing, how they knew it was wrong. Similar to Jan Gross book Neighbors.
Things over the years even centuries had waxed a waned in their degree of severity against Jews so many thought this was another waxing that would again wain and when it escalated to over a cliff it was tok late for many. Remember many haf their businesses and to let them go for nothing on a far shore fir something that might again wane.
This host is highly intelligent and he is raising some of the most salient points about Germans, Jews and the Holocaust that Goldhagen can barely grasp. I find many of his answers to be quite superficial.
I strongly suggest that you broaden your perspective by listening in to the critique of this. Goldhagen is very biased. Christopher Browning is worth reading.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is an interesting figure. After all, in his weird way, he reveals his own bigotry. Let us put it this way, he ONLY hates anti-Semitism because he ONLY associates it with one Nation, and one Nation only, the Germans. Suffice, simply because someone is an anti-Semite, it does not follow, necessarily, that such and such a person is German. Heaven forbid, anti-Semites having to live in fear of being mistaken for Germans. The horrors! Needless to say, anti-Semites come in all shapes and sizes, all colors; live on every continent of The Earth. There are Polish anti-Semites, and Russian anti-Semites. There are even a surprising number of African American anti-Semites as well. Look at Louis Farrakhan! Do you imagine, for a minute, that Louis Farrakhan is, somehow, German?
anti semitic beliefs have been around for thousands of years simply because it was an easy way to scape goat people’s problems. You have absolute worms for brains. There was no particular “reason” why a large part of German society was eliminationist.
The question of how normal “good” people can change into committing horrible atrocities against their most innocent neighbors is complex and multi-faceted. I appreciate this book as being thoughtful. Conversely “Ordinary Men” addresses the same question but comes to entirely different conclusions. My thought is both conceptions are at least partially correct and there may be more factors that haven’t been thought of yet. Both books are good first starts.
I was wishing the interviewer would have followed the author much more than argue with him then we would have gotten more information about what he found out in his research.
Although Germany was the NAZI state it should be remembered that Hitler and many top NAZIs were Austrian and the German forces found many willing accomplices in the countries they occupied.For political reasons, it suited the western allies and the Soviet union to portray those in occupied Europe both east and west as heroic defenders of their Jewish populations when in reality that was not the case.
One of the reasons why the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe was so successful was due to collaboration.Europe and Europeans wherever they settled have an inglorious reputation for vicious antisemitism which the NAZIs did not invent but exploited.
@@markitgeek the European collaboration ran deep in Europe... antisemitism existed for hundreds of years before National Socialism
I mean since the dawn of religion Jews have been subjugated to antisemitism
@@weignerleigner3037 In his book Goldhagen does not mince words, but says that hundreds of years of Christian anti-Semitism in Central Europe made the Holocaust easy. It would be silly to assume that Germans were completely changed in a few years. When the war and the Holocaust started, they were both Christian and anti-Semitic.
Anti-semitism should be the preselected position of all non-jews. Cope.
Bill you are Correct. A lot of the top Nazis were Austrian and some of the most evil people in history. Hitler, Eichmann, Alois Bruner, Odilo Globočnik, Franz Stangl, Aribert Heim, Hermann Höfle, Gustav Wagner, Franz Reichleitner, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Otto Wächter, Franz Novak, Siegfried Seidl
I read his book.
The Jozefow, Lomazy and Majdanek accounts give nightmares.
I am not Jewish.
PLease find a copy of A Nation On Trial - The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Birn. It rips Goldhagen's rantings to shreds. As is noted by Finkelstein, the book contains no bibliography or any peer reviews re the veracity of its sources. Chomsky has referred to Goldhagen's work as "worthless to scholarship.
A very important book and a great interview. Great to hear this smart guy talk *g
I'm from germany myself and my grandparents and their siblings were soldiers, civilians and refugees (expelled from the sudetenland at the end of the war) during WWII. And as Goldhagen said: Some of the perspectives, theories, facts and conclusions in his book were long over due to be "forced" upon the public here. His discription of the german view on the "third reich" is very accurate and this view is still very wide spread today. To shift the focus from the huge amount of ordinary people who participated, supported and benefited from the holocaust to an anonymous aparatus, to anonymous institutions and a hand full of high ranking, fanatical nazis.. As if Hitler and his staff were some alien race who landed in germany, bewitched the germans, forced them to commit a genocide and start a world war and then left again on 8th of may 45, leaving the germans without any memory of the past twelve years.
Some of his conclusions were so obvious and... lively to me, from what I heard about the time from my own family. It just matched with the defense and the denial many germans built up against the accusation of willingly commiting a genocide and start a war and the guilt that these accusations and historical truths bring.
Thank you, Mr. Goldhagen, for this book. And thank you, cunytv75 for uploading!
But how does one validate Germany now?
Hell, America lies to itself every day on what happened in 300 years of slavery, so it not difficult to do, to cover up a horrendous history.
It's painful to realize what went on. Glad it's over but I don't blame Germany for being quiet.
If the author looked more broadly on other societies it would be a more useful book
its also a lot of bollocks.
collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib28446
day tripper enormous difference between Germany and USA, as the American Civil war demonstrates...Slavery was decried as evil, immoral, and it was stopped...Entirely different. Only Southerners still distort history and refuse to come clean historically. As millions of books attest, the rest of the nation has no such qualms...
The interviewer is hostile toward his subject. I read this book when it came out. It has been largely forgotten. I have not forgotten, and it is disheartening and tragic to witness the same psychological warfare taking place today. It does not, however, absolve ordinary people from individual responsibility. Ask questions. Be curious when a group is being vilified. The interviewer showed his extreme anti-Jewish bias in this interview. Jewish people are used to defending their right to exist. Are there bad Jewish people? Yes. Are there bad British? Americans? Plug in your own ethnicity or race. We are back in 2022. Back … history is about to repeat itself.
That dude Goldhagen got that smooth calm voice, I could hear him preach for days
Impressive 90s hair in this video, Gordon Gecko would be proud
Please have a debate between Goldhagen and Browning or Snyder.
"A tiny, tiny percentage of whites in the South owned slaves..." is not true. In South Carolina roughly fifty percent of whites owned slaves. It was even higher in other states, such as Mississippi.
I agree more with Christopher Brownings' conclusions regarding the dispositions, motives etc of the "ordinary" men who carried out such horrors during the war. You cannot focus on ONE cause/reason...that reflects an "all or nothing" thinking which is a psychological distortion. Humans are much more complex than that. My opinion is that a myriad of factors were in play and that not ALL of the German police carried out killings at first or not at all as proven by Browning. But I thoroughly agree that having a discussion on this matter is a beneficial thing. God bless~
I would like to have heard more about the book, and less about what ever happened on his trip to Germany
Agree with Daniel...
collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib28446
One of the many reason Latinos of 22 Spanish speaking countries are oppressed is the same Reason Jews were attacked, they lacked a united voice. The divisions between our language, culture and dialects are so big we have been unable to bridge them. Publications likes La Voz, in Michigan and Joaquin in Ca can help bridge this gap. As a community we must gain our identity in the eyes of government representatives by voicing our concerns as one people. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the country and will soon be the majority in Texas and California, yet we are still under represented.Yet, our neighbors on the East Coast and across the country see us, the way Germans saw them. How is it possible that millions of American Citizens have failed to gain adequate representation? Why do we continue to permit none forked tongue politicians to use us to promote their interest and not our own? We have unwittingly become complicit in our own destruction. This is unacceptable.
Heartfelt thank you’s.
He is focusing mainly on german jews, while most jews like 99 percent was not german that were killed. He presents Germany as the only antisemitic country. There were other countries like Rumania or Poland and other just as antisemitic. Antisemitism explains more than Browning wants to admit but it doesnt explain everything. Some people flipped pretty quickly towards helping nazis with the holocaust.
Poland had been tolerant and permissive of Jews right up until the partition. There’s a reason why they have a large Jewish community, one which the Germans wanted to exterminate.
Also, you do realize that both of those nations were occupied, right? I’ll let you figure out who occupied them on your own.
Just ordered the book. Amazing!
Book Circa 1996, Goldhagen's age at this interview is 36.
Randall Smith He’s a fucking blowhard
To look away not notice when anyone is being killed is moral guilt in my book, to enable it by not opposing in whatever way one could is how most evil goes on.
"Never again" means that extreme views of hatred (towards anybody) won't be legitimated as a consensus of the majority in society.
I agree with Karen Turnbull that the host kept interjecting and arguing with Goldhagen,, which was quite exasperating.
Thank you, Daniel, for your brilliant scholarship about Hitler's willing executioners. I revere your work.
For any interested, check out Chris Browning, who takes a broader, more nuanced social science viewpoint about this particular genocide which, of course, was indeed instrumented in anti-semitism. Its just that Goldhagen over-particularizes genocide to something uniquely German and anti-Jew. What went on in Darfur and Balkans had nothing to do with anti-semitism. The disease goes deeper in human nature/proclivities/vulnerabilities/susceptibilities. Jmho.
The interviewer is interrogating him on the existence of collective guilt among Germans as if it’s a simple answer. Like that’s not even what the book is about anyway and for the questions Goldhagen was trying to answer, it’s not an important question… goodness dude… stay on topic🙄
What was the music playing during the end credits?
The question is how academia, press, entertainment industry are used as propaganda machine by a group to create an official truth that justifies whatever else
Much gratitude for adding another important piece to a very complex but important puzzle sorely in need of solution. I care less about the terrible events of the past than in preventing a repeat of such events in my own time and society.
Hmmm, Chomsky describes his book as "worthless to scholarship" And it really is. Here is the real scholarship that debunked Goldhagen's meandering drivel.
collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib28446
Goodness, what a poor interviewer.
The Haavara Agreement contradicts Goldhagen's thesis.
He looks like milo yianopollis
This host is why w are defunding public media, public tv and radio
They use collective guilt 150 years past colonialism.
A journalist twisting words ...I am shocked
In 1916, in a small town named Waco/Texas a black youth was lynched so cruel, like mankind didnt see it since middle age. And around them, there was a crowd of 15000 cheering people. No police intervened. Dear Mr. Goldhagen: Blame your own countrymen.
For what?
@@tjclarke238 Blame the victim huh. He must have had it coming. You know how these people are. Have to put them in check.
Goldhagen speaks to the fact that the entire German nation knew and participated in the holocaust. Comparing a singular act to what Goldhagen was speaking is absurd. Why would Goldhagen take responsibility or blame for a single act in which he did not participate? McSilver sounds like a Russian troll.
'Willing Executioners' was the most difficult book I have ever read.
Joe McSilver although true, a read herring to the topic
So what is an 'ordinary German'?
+Adam Cortright a cold person without any problem to put you into the gaschamber, if you arent a ordinary german
+Adam Cortright Here Goldhagen defines "ordinary Germans" as essentially the average day-goers that own shops, walk the streets, and are the majority of the population of Germany 1932-1945
He was referring to the title of another books which addressed the historical evidence of Germans who were not driven by ideology, but who were ordered to shoot Jews, including women and children. Ordinary Men, like the German War, is based on primary reference such as diaries and letters from the perpetrators, showing how they justified what they were doing, how they knew it was wrong. Similar to Jan Gross book Neighbors.
he is missing
I will have to read it ...what I see in the review is a shallow and adversarial interview that just isn't taking me deeper .
Lucky guy, I am not the one talking to him.
This guy is the 1990s version of Sam Harris. They talk and sound exactly the same
Things over the years even centuries had waxed a waned in their degree of severity against Jews so many thought this was another waxing that would again wain and when it escalated to over a cliff it was tok late for many. Remember many haf their businesses and to let them go for nothing on a far shore fir something that might again wane.
This host is highly intelligent and he is raising some of the most salient points about Germans, Jews and the Holocaust that Goldhagen can barely grasp. I find many of his answers to be quite superficial.
24:00 in 2021....just saying.
I strongly suggest that you broaden your perspective by listening in to the critique of this. Goldhagen is very biased. Christopher Browning is worth reading.
😂😂 I read that name wrong.
Nazimoron
This man appitemises formal Jewish attitudes towards Catholic Jewish dialogue
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is an interesting figure. After all, in his weird way, he reveals his own bigotry. Let us put it this way, he ONLY hates anti-Semitism because he ONLY associates it with one Nation, and one Nation only, the Germans. Suffice, simply because someone is an anti-Semite, it does not follow, necessarily, that such and such a person is German. Heaven forbid, anti-Semites having to live in fear of being mistaken for Germans. The horrors!
Needless to say, anti-Semites come in all shapes and sizes, all colors; live on every continent of The Earth. There are Polish anti-Semites, and Russian anti-Semites. There are even a surprising number of African American anti-Semites as well. Look at Louis Farrakhan! Do you imagine, for a minute, that Louis Farrakhan is, somehow, German?
Twinruler: I cannot imagine a more negligent comment. Goldhagen also wrote a book about worldwide antisemitism.
Twinruler334 I would also reference the works of Jan Gross which show the brutality launched against Jews by their Polish neighbors.
@@merriferrell2818 you mean something that doesn’t happen? Only Germany committed the holocaust, the rest of Europe never did.
OK, the germans hated the jews. Now tell me why, what happened, anybody knows Samuel Untermyer ?
Read the book.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Untermyer
anti semitic beliefs have been around for thousands of years simply because it was an easy way to scape goat people’s problems. You have absolute worms for brains. There was no particular “reason” why a large part of German society was eliminationist.