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Look Inside | Reading Guide
Reading Guide
Jan 28, 1997 | ISBN 9780679772682 Buy
Dec 18, 2007 | ISBN 9780307426239 Buy
Also available from:
Available from:
Jan 28, 1997 | ISBN 9780679772682
Dec 18, 2007 | ISBN 9780307426239
This groundbreaking international bestseller lays to rest many myths about the Holocaust: that Germans were ignorant of the mass destruction of Jews, that the killers were all SS men, and that those who slaughtered Jews did so reluctantly. Hitler’s Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of “eliminationist anti-Semitism” that made Hitler’s pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews during the 1930s popular. Drawing on a wealth of unused archival materials, principally the testimony of the killers themselves, Goldhagen takes us into the killing fields where Germans voluntarily hunted Jews like animals, tortured them wantonly, and then posed cheerfully for snapshots with their victims. From mobile killing units, to the camps, to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion.“Hitler’s Willing Executioner’s is an original, indeed brilliant contribution to the…literature on the Holocaust.”–New York Review of Books“The most important book ever published about the Holocaust…Eloquently written, meticulously documented, impassioned…A model of moral and scholarly integrity.”–Philadelphia Inquirer
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen was awarded Germany’s Democracy Prize for Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Until deciding to devote himself full-time to writing, he taught political science and social studies for many years at Harvard University.
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