+1 862 207 3288 Explaining the Holocaust. For many years, historians have tended to agree with Walter Laquer when he wrote that “It is easy to claim that everyone should have known
what would happen once Fascism came to power. But such an approach is ahistorical. There was no precedent in recent European history for the murderous character of
German National Socialism and for this reason most contemporaries were caught unprepared”. However, this view has been challenged strongly, most recently by Daniel
Jonah Goldhagen in his best-selling book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. He has written that “not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state,
not social psychological pressure, not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were pervasive in Germany and had been for decades induced
ordinary Germans to kill systematically and without pity”. In other words, Laquer is arguing that even Germans who supported the Nazis were not expecting what the
reality of the Holocaust turned out to be; Goldhagen, on the other hand, is arguing that Nazism simply permitted deep seated ideas and beliefs to be acted on, and that
all Germans became (as his title suggests) willing participants in the Holocaust.
Explaining the Holocaust. For many years, historians have tended to agree with Walter Laquer when he wrote that �?œIt is easy to claim that everyone should
have known what would happen once Fascism came to power. But such an approach is ahistorical. There was no precedent in recent European history for the murderous
character of German National Socialism and for this reason most contemporaries were caught unprepared�?. However, this view has been challenged strongly,
most recently by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his best-selling book, Hitler�??s Willing Executioners. He has written that �?œnot economic hardship, not
the coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social psychological pressure, not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were pervasive in
Germany and had been for decades induced ordinary Germans to kill systematically and without pity�?. In other words, Laquer is arguing that even Germans
who supported the Nazis were not expecting what the reality of the Holocaust turned out to be; Goldhagen, on the other hand, is arguing that Nazism simply permitted
deep seated ideas and beliefs to be acted on, and that all Germans became (as his title suggests) willing participants in the Holocaust.
Which of these arguments is closer to the historical reality as you understand it? Was the Holocaust something that no one could have foreseen (except perhaps for
Hitler�??s inner circle), or was it just the natural conclusion to tendencies present in German history long before Hitler arrived on the scene? Whichever
approach you take, provide at least six specific historical examples to support your thesis.
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