Is It Really That Simple?: A Response to Goldhagen (and Newman)

Abstract

Is It Really That Simple? A Response to Goldhagen (and Newman) Randall L. Bytwerk Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a book that the public loves and scholars hate. It made the best seller lists in the U.S. and Germany, but scholarly reviews have been almost uniformly negative. Something interesting is happening here. What is there about this book that makes those who know the most like it the least? Robert Newman takes a David and Goliath approach to the controversy: the young upstart slays the scholarly giants of the "Holocaust establishment." I shall argue a contrary biblical metaphor: Goldhagen has built his alluring scholarly house upon the sand. It takes an expert to know that the foundation is dubious. First, let us be clear exactly what the controversy is about, since in the heat of discussion Goldhagen's position is often misstated. His central argument is that what he calls "eliminationist antisemitism" is a sufficient causal explanation for the behavior of Germans who carried out the Holocaust, and that this species of anti-Semitism was sufficiently widespread such that most Germans would have behaved similarly. In his words: The conclusion of this book is that antisemitism moved many thousands of "ordinary " Germans—and would have moved millions more, had they been appropriately positioned—to slaughter Jews. Not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social psychological pressure, not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about lews that were pervasive in Germany, and had been for decades, induced ordinary Germans to kill unarmed, defenseless Jewish men, women, and children by the thousands, systematically and without pity.1 He does not argue that anti-Semitism was the Holocaust's sole cause; to the contrary , he specifically points out that such factors as the person of Adolf Hitler and the advent of World War II were essential. Anti-Semitism was a necessary, but not sufficient cause for the Holocaust. Randall L. Bytwerk is Professor and Chair of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. © Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 1, No. 3, 1998, pp. 425^33 ISSN 1094-8392 426 Rhetoric & Public Affairs His conclusion is comforting, for it suggests that the Germans of the Third Reich were different from the rest of the world's population (a conclusion Goldhagen encourages when he suggests that we must look at the Germans as an anthropologist would look at a strange culture), different even from the Germans of today, since he argues that this "eliminationist antisemitism" has now vanished from Germany. No one argues that anti-Semitism was an insignificant factor in the Holocaust. The Nazis devoted great effort to it, and it surely had substantial effect. Nor does anyone deny that some Germans were murderously anti-Semitic. What nearly every expert rejects is Goldhagen's contention that most Germans shared a specific kind of anti-Semitism causally sufficient to lead them to murder. What is wrong with this position? Quite simply, it is too simple. Goldhagen defends himself against the charge by saying that sometimes things really are simple.2 German anti-Semitism was so uniformly distributed and held with such similar intensity that it is unnecessary to seek any other reason for the murderous behavior of Germans. This approach rests upon a theory of persuasion discarded decades ago, even by the Nazis themselves, who would have been delighted to achieve the success with their anti-Semitic propaganda that Goldhagen believes they had. As a preface, let us consider American racism. It is widely distributed. It has been responsible for a variety of evils. Yet would anyone argue that all White Americans share the same degree of prejudice? Some are as anti-Black as the most passionate Nazis were anti-Semitic. Some prefer to have as little to do with Blacks as possible. Some are proponents of civil rights because they recognize even in themselves remnants of racism. Some view Blacks as on average intellectually inferior, leading them to oppose social policies that in their view ignore this "fact of nature." For some, it is not a salient issue. There are varieties and intensities of prejudice, and someone...