American and German perspectives on the Goldhagen debate: History, identity, and the media

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 396-411

  Ash, Mitchell G ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA   (Austria)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 63849104338     PISSN: 87566583     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hgs/11.3.396     Document Type: Review

References (60)

1. For extended critiques see, e.g., Clive James, "Blaming the Germans," The New Yorker, April 22, 1996, pp. 44-50
2. Omer Bartov, "Ordinary Monsters," The New Republic, April 29, 1996, pp. 32-38
3. Christopher R. Browning, "Daniel Goldhagen's Willing Executioners," History and Memory 8 (1996), pp. 88-108
4. Robert Gellately, "Review of Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners," Journal of Modern History 69 (1997), pp. 187-91
5. Ruth B. Birn, "Revising the Holocaust," Historical Journal 40 (1997), pp. 195-215
6. Dieter Pohl, "Die Holocaust-Forschung und Goldhagens Thesen," Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45 (1997), pp. 1-48
7. For reflections on the resulting controversy, see Fritz Stern, "The Goldhagen Controversy: One Nation, One People, One Theory?," Foreign Affairs 75:6 (1996), pp. 128-38
8. Josef Joffe, "Goldhagen in Germany," The New York Review of Books, November 28, 1996, pp. 18-21
9. Steven E. Aschheim, "Archetypes and the German-Jewish Dialogue: Reflections Occasioned by the Goldhagen Affair," German History 15 (1997), pp. 240-50
10. A collection of American, English, Israeli, and German texts on the debate is Julius H. Schoeps, ed., Ein Volk von Mördern? (Hamburg, 1996)
11. For documents of the German debate, with particular emphasis on contributions to the weekly Die Zeit, see Die Goldhagen-Kontroverse, Volker Ullrich, ed. (ZEIT dokument 1, 1996)
12. For a thorough overview and bibliography of reviews published in the American, English, and German press through July, 1996 see Matthias Heyl, "Die Goldhagen-Debate im Spiegel der englisch- und deutschsprachigen Rezensionen von Februar bis Juli 1996. Ein Überblick," Mittelweg 36 4 (August/September 1996), Literaturbeilage, pp. 41-56
13. Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996), p. 10
14. To give only one example, Goldhagen cites the early work of Israeli historian Shulamith Volkow on antisemitism among German artisans during the late nineteenth century, but ignores her analyses of the discontinuities in antisemitism in Germany through the Nazi period. See, e.g., Shulamith Volkow, "Das geschriebene und das gesprochene Wort: Über Kontinuität und Diskontinuität im deutschen Antisemitismus," in Jüdisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1990), pp. 54-75
15. Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners, p. 70. Emphasis mine
16. Daniel J. Goldhagen, "Das Versagen der Kritiker," Die Zeit, August 2, 1996
17. idem., "Motives, Causes and Alibis: A Reply to My Critics," The New Republic, December 23, 1996, pp. 37-45
18. Wolfgang Scheffler, "Ein Rückschritt in der Holocaustforschung," Der Tagesspiegel, September 3, 1996, p. 21
19. See also Birn, "Revising the Holocaust,"
20. and Pohl, "Die Holocaust-Forschung" (cit. n. 1)
21. Both Birn's article and especially Norman Finkelstein, "Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 'Crazy' Thesis," New Left Review (July/August 1997)
22. have excited public controversy in Germany and Austria: see "Goldhagen - ein Quellentrickster?," Der Spiegel, Nr. 33, 1997, pp. 156-57
23. and Michael Siegert, "Der Super-Prof als Blockbuster," Profil, August 25, 1997, pp. 63-65. Unfortunately, Finkelstein damages his own credibility by using his critique of Goldhagen to support his antizionist political standpoint
24. A. M. Rosenthal, "Some Ordinary Germans," The New York Times, April 1, 1996
25. Alan Cowell, "Germans, Jews and Blame: New Book, New Pain," The New York Times, April 26, 1996
26. Cf. Rudolf Augstein, "Der Soziologe als Scharfrichter," Der Spiegel 16 (1996), pp. 29, 32
27. Another reason for this choice is the sensible decision made by H-German's editors, soon after the first spontaneous reactions appeared, to request that contributions be based on an actual reading of Goldhagen's book. This prevented the subsequent exchange from merging into a general debate on the Shoah
28. Maria Mitchell and Peter Caldwell, in H-German, April 11, 1996
29. Richard S. Levy, H-German, May 22, 1996
30. Bartov, "Ordinary Monsters" (cit. n. 1)
31. Roland Wagner, H-German, May 17, 1996
32. Paul Lawrence Rose, H-German, May 17, 1996
33. Michael T. Allen, H-German, May 17, 1996
34. For this view, see introduction to Schoeps, Ein Volk von Mördern?
35. Peter Schommer, H-German, April 30, 1996
36. Eberhard Jäckel, "Einfach ein schlechtes Buch," Die Zeit, May 17, 1996, p. 14
37. cf. Norbert Frei, "Ein Volk von 'Endlösern'? Daniel Goldhagen bringt eine alte These im neuen Gewand," Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 13, 1996
38. Andrei S. Markovitz captures this tone well in his "Über das Unbehagen der Deutschen: Eine Antwort auf die eifrige Kritik der Studie 'Hitler's Willing Executioners,'" Frankfurter Rundschau, June 15, 1996
39. idem., "Störfall im Endlager der Geschichte: Daniel Goldhagen und seine deutschen Kritiker," Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik (1996), pp. 667-74
40. Hanno Loewy, "Wider die allzu schnelle Erledigung: Anmerkungen zu Daniel Goldhagens Erklärung von Motiven Für den Holocaust," Frankfurter Rundschau, June 15, 1996
41. Julius Schoeps, "Vom Rufmord zum Massenmord. Die Nazis mußten den Vernichtungsantisemitismus nicht erfinden: Warum Goldhagens Thesen eine Diskussion wert sind," Die Zeit, May 3, 1996
42. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, "Wie ein Stachel im Fleisch," Die Zeit, May 24, 1996, p. 40
43. Ulrich Herbert, "Aus der Mitte der Gesellschaft," in Die Goldhagen-Kontroverse, pp. 22-23
44. Michael Y. Bodeman, "Die Bösen und die ganz normalen Guten," Die Tageszeitung, August 7, 1996
45. As television viewers throughout Germany, including myself, saw and heard during the live telecast of this event, Goldhagen acknowledged, in what I perceived as an ingratiating "nobody's perfect" tone, that some aspects of his book could be flawed. When a report from the Reuters news service to this effect appeared in the International Herald Tribune on September 6, 1996, Goldhagen responded in a letter published in that newspaper on September 19 as follows: "I never said - nor indeed in any way implied - that my book Hitler's Willing Executioners 'has flaws.' . . . I defended my book's conclusions with unceasing vigor and emphatically restated its central arguments, which I have been given no reason to revise whatsoever."
46. See the articles by Goldhagen cited in n. 5
47. For a sharply worded discussion of the role of this factor in the reception of Goldhagen's theses in America, see Gulie Ne'eman Arad, "Ein amerikanischer Alptraum: Zum kulturellen Kontext von Daniel Goldhagens 'Hitler's Willing Executioners,'" Frankfurter Rundschau, May 14, 1996
48. For the "pornography" assessment, see Bodeman, "Die Bösen und die ganz normalen Guten," (cit. n. 20)
49. and the exchange between Bodeman and Josef Joffe, "Pornography of Horror?," The New York Review of Books, April 10, 1997, pp. 68-69
50. cf. Ulrich Raulff, "Herz der Finsternis: Daniel Jonah Goldhagens Ästhetik des Grauens," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 16, 1996
51. For the attractions of immediacy, see, e.g., Elizabeth von Thadden, "Viel zu kühl. 'Hitlers willige Vollstrecker' in Frankfurt: Das Publikum fordert von der Wissenschaft Respekt vor dem Einzelnen," Die Wochenpost, September 19, 1996, p. 15
52. cf. "Im Räderwerk. Betroffenheit und Anschauung des Grausamen führen nicht auf den Grund des Holocaust: Ein Gespräch mit Hans Mommsen," Die Zeit, September 7, 1996, p. 37
53. For a telling anecdote in support of this suggestion, see Amos Elon, "The Antagonist as Liberator," New York Times Magazine, January 26, 1997, p. 40
54. A conspicuous exception is Kurt Pätzold, "Auf der breiten Spur der deutschen Täter," Neues Deutschland, August 17-18, 1996, p. 12
55. See, e.g., Stern, "The Goldhagen Controversy,"
56. and Joffe, "Goldhagen in Germany."
57. "A thorn in the side" is the title of Wehler's review. There is some justification for this view. One prominent conservative publicist argued that the book's real aim was "to fix the Germans to a Sonderweg for the next century," and thus to hinder any normalization. Frank Schirrmacher, "Hitler's Code: Holocaust aus faustischem Streben? Daniel John [sic] Goldhagens Remythisierung der Deutschen," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 15, 1996, p. 31
58. Jürgen Habermas, "Über den öffentlichen Gebrauch von Historie: Warum ein 'Demokratiepreis' für Daniel Goldhagen?" Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, April 1997, pp. 408-16.
59. Jan Philipp Reemtsma, "Abkehr vom Wunsch nach Verleugnung: Über 'Hitlers willige Vollstrecker' als Gegenstück zur 'historischen Erklärung,'" ibid., pp. 417-23
60. For a similar, quite early Austrian response, see Hubertus Czernin, "Die überfällige Provokation," Profil 17 (April 22, 1996), p. 15. In an interview published in the same journal (p. 122), Vienna historian Gerhard Jagschitz describes Goldhagen's book as "useful for the psychological hygiene" of Austrians who had grown too accustomed to more comforting interpretations of their past