Available: January 1, 2000 In 1996, our understanding of the Holocaust and its causes was given a jolt by the publication of Daniel Goldhagen's controversial bestsellerHitler's Willing Executioners, which disturbingly argued that the complicity of ordinary Germans in Nazi genocide was rooted in a pervasive "eliminationist antisemitism." Not so, argues Eric A. Johnson, in his startling new book Nazi Terror. Goldhagen's ideologically driven thesis simplified and distorted the motivations of many ordinary Germans, who, according to Johnson, cooperated with the Nazi for a whole host of reasons including, but in no way limited to, anti-semitism. Their complicity was a multifaceted and often ambiguous response to a reign of terror. Based on years of research in Germany that includes previously inaccessible court records, surveys, interviews, and oral histories from men and women who lived through the Nazi Terror, Nazi Terrorsettles many nagging questions about who, exactly, was responsible for what, who knew what, and when they knew it. Johnson definitively answers such questions as these: · Did the Nazis control every aspect of German society?Nazi Terrorshows that repression was brutal, but also selective. The Gestapo hunted down Jews and Communists, but ordinary Germans had little to fear from the police apparatus. · Who resisted the Nazis? Johnson examines the ineffective youth groups, the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, and the tragic role of the Communist Party and Jehovah's Witnesses. As Johnson says, "Too few had the conviction to stand up in protest to a regime whose criminal and inhumane acts often defy description. Among those who did, the Communist Party towered. Many of its members paid dearly for their courage." · Who committed the Holocaust? Johnson brilliantly puts a face on the men who participated in small and large scale murder during the war. He explains to what extent the officers in the Gestapo were "ordinary" Germans, how they joined the Nazi Party, and what happened to them after the war. · How much did the German people know?Johnson shows millions must have known about the Holocaust. He explains that through word of mouth, BBC Radio, and leaflets dropped by the allies, Germans could form a clear picture of the war effort and the mass murder in the concentration camps. ThroughoutNazi
Terror, Johnson examines the question of guilt. How much did ordinary Germans know about the Holocaust? To what extent did they participate in the terror or how far did they go to resist it? He rejects the simplistic answer that the entire population was anti-semitic and equally culpable of mass murder. As he tells the stories of Jewish families sent to concentration camps, of Communist resisters, and the individual priests who faced not only the terror but their church as well, Johnson shows that while ordinary Germans did indeed make "a pact with the devil," and civilian denunciations did play a large role in the success of the Gestapo, we need to remember "that some Germans were far more guilty
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to
each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that
we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted
at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy