Some Sociological Contemplations on Daniel J. Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners

Abstract

In this article I examine recent debates surrounding the publication of Daniel J. Goldhagen's controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners. I do so against the `backdrop' of contention regarding the (historical) centrality of the Nazi Holocaust and the role played by Holocaust Studies - a burgeoning area of academic special interest, involving mainly historians, but also sociologists, theologians and philosophers. In particular I consider the charged disputation(s) which have flowed from Norman G. Finkelstein's critique of Hitler's Willing Executioners and ponder what this tells us about the way in which (political) identity is configured in the post-Holocaust era. In so doing I examine the political investments at stake in these debates and challenge the degree to which academics working within this field have been able to transcend the ideological subject-positions in which they are embedded.