[Peace-discuss] Hitler, Holocaust

[C. G. Estabrook]

If you read Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" (or even if you 
don't), you should read what seems to me to be an absolute destruction 
of Goldhagen in "A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical 
Truth," by Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Bettina Birn -- 
<http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=2>.

A summary by Finkelstein of the dispute is at
<http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=2&ar=2>.

Another book that might go on Ricky's list is Milton Mayer, "They 
Thought They Were Free," written in 1955 but in print.  The following is 
from a recent review by Thom Hartmann:

...One of his closing chapters, "Peoria Uber Alles," is so poignant and 
prescient that were Mayer still alive today I doubt he could read it out 
loud without his voice breaking. It's the story of how what happened in 
Germany could just as easily happen in Peoria, Illinois, particularly if 
the city were to become isolationistic and suffered some sort of natural 
or man-made disaster or attack that threw its people into the warm but 
deadly embrace of authoritarianism.

     "The [Peorian] individual surrenders his individuality without a 
murmur, without, indeed, a second thought - and not just his individual 
hobbies and tastes, but his individual occupation, his individual family 
concerns, his individual needs. The primordial community, the tribe, 
re-emerges, it's first function the preservation of all its members. 
Every normal personality of the day becomes an 'authoritarian 
personality.' A few recalcitrants have to be disciplined (vigorously, 
under the circumstances) for neglect or betrayal of their duty. A few 
groups have to be watched or, if necessary, taken in hand - the 
antisocial elements, the liberty-howlers, the agitators among the poor, 
and the criminal gangs. For the rest of the citizens - 95 percent or so 
of the population - duty is now the central fact of life. They obey, at 
first awkwardly, but, surprisingly soon, spontaneously."

--CGE


Ricky Baldwin wrote:
 > Two recent books worth a read in this regard:
 >
 > Hitler's Willing Executioners
 > (about the zealous participation of ordinary Germans,
 > who in many cases went far beyond their infamous
 > "orders")
 >
 > What We Knew
 > (about the extent to which ordinary Germans knew about
 > the Holocaust as it as happening)
 >
 > Both are chilling, and they say a lot about what a
 > well educated, well read society can do - with mass
 > participation.  Timely, methinks.
 >