Talk:Daniel Goldhagen/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Purported affiliation 2 biased 3 A terrible entry 4 POV reverted 5 Weasel words, not referenced 6 pov tag 7 Work to do 8 scholars 9 Proposed removal #1 10 Proposed removal #2 11 Proposed removal #3 12 Vandalism? 13 Totally disputed 14 Perspective and Nuance

[edit] Purported affiliation

I removed changes by an anonymous user at 83.109.158.129. I claim that it can only be a matter of opinion whether anyone is "belonging to the extreme Jewish ethnic nationalist right-wing" (in the same way that being the author of Hitler's Willing Executioners is not a matter of opinion). Hoziron 04:27, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] biased

This article is biased and needs NPOV correction. See, e.g., Goldhagen’s reply to his critics [1]. —Cesar Tort 04:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

signed: Travb (talk) 01:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I propose the NPOV tag be removed from this article. --GHcool 01:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

You have to argue your case. —Cesar Tort 02:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A terrible entry

This article is probably the best example I have seen of why Wikipedia, I am sorry to say, is virtually useless in the research of serious scholarly works. The article clearly spends a disproportionate amount of space focusing on "criticism" of Mr. Goldhagen's work, citing authors and biased media sources who are clearly not equipped to comment on such a complex topic.

That the article devotes such space to ideological hitmen such as Norman Finkelstein is itself proof that the entry cannot be taken seriously. As the post above notes, Goldhagen has replied to the utterly nonsensical criticism of Mr. Finkelstein and his comrade Ms. Birn. Mr. Finkelstein makes ridiculous errors in his criticism, such as pointing to a general argument of a writer Mr. Goldstein has cited, whose work was obviously a compilation of historical documents. Even a high school student could tell you that a scholar is not required to agree with every single word an author puts to print when their work is clearly a historical collection, in this case being the various dictates, balcony speeches and flights of fancy of Hitler and his entourage. If at the end of this work the author gives his opinion on what all of the compiled documents show, an author is not required to agree with this to cite a quote from Hitler in his own work. Mr. Finkelstein has himself admitted that he does not read German and thus cannot give an opinion on the reams of historical documents which go into such a work. He is obviously an ideologue with a huge political axe to grind, and the author's citation of him as a respected scholar either shows a clear bias or an ignorance of the issues at hand.

The overall tenor of the entry is obviously negative in tone against Mr. Goldhagen, with the author applying freely such meaningless sentences such as "much criticism," "generally reviewed," "widely seen" etc. to a complex and ongoing discussion. Many sentences are badly written and do not even make grammatical sense. A very bad entry all around.

James Watson June 1st, 2006

I can't say that I agree. Goldhagen's thesis has been pretty much rejected by just about every major holocaust scholar I can think of, not just Norman Finkelstein. The -fact- is that Goldhagen is a political scientist that wrote a book about history that historians didn't think much of. Perhaps they're all wrong, but the unpopularity of what Goldhagen wrote with most other authors on the subject isn't a novel assertion.

Wilhelm Ritter 12:21, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said, James Watson. I have read Goldhagen’s book. But I would much prefer that another editor rewrites the article in total from a neutral point of view. According to Wikipedia policies you or anybody else can do it. I hope someone will try it soon! Meanwhile the article must retain the POV tag I myself posted. —Cesar Tort 22:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Be bold they say. Well: I will be bold with this “terrible entry”. The whole article was criticism, so much so that even Goldhagen’s photograph was a very unfavorable one! (I have seen many other photos of him). The only way to immediately convert it to NPOV was to remove most of the “biased media sources who are clearly not equipped to comment on such a complex topic”, as Watson wrote above, even if for the moment this converts the article in a mere stub.

I am not Jewish but it seems that some vandals who have edited this article have had an anti-Semitic agenda. I hope other editors who, besides Watson, have complained in the edit summaries about this article and reverted even further anti-Semitic vandalism (the last one was an accusation that Goldhagen is gay) will help me to rewrite a truly NPOV article. —Cesar Tort 17:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The best way to do this is to write an article that focus not on the author, but on Goldhagen’s book Hitler's Willing Executioners. —Cesar Tort 17:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I removed an external link that had nothing to do with Goldhagen and other four external links that repeated the Finkelstein and Browning’s views. Since the previous incarnation of this article dealt almost exclusively with criticism the bias was reflected in the links too. I left only about 50% of critical links according to npov. —Cesar Tort 15:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV is meant to be about giving "due weight" to opposing points of view. The view critical of Goldhagen happens to be the dominant one, so it's perfectly appropriate to have more external links representing that point of view. NPOV does not require exactly even numbers of links. john k 11:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is actually one of the few times that I have seen an article touching on the Holocaust that raises wikipedia to a scholarly level. There is so much criticism written on his book because it is embarrassingly unscholarly, no other reason - usually a book of this genre guarantees a professorship at Harvard - when did Harvard get a spine.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs)

There is so much criticism written on his book for the same reason that the Roman writer Porphyry was hated in the IV century; for the same reason that in the late 1940s Orwell was hated in leftist circles; for the same reason that Solzhenitsyn was hated among stupid intellectuals in the early 1970s (here in Mexico leftist academics are so astronomically stupid and on denial that they have still not read Solzhenitsyn!).

It’s disturbing to learn that many ordinary white, European people were involved in a massive genocide of Jews. It’s far easier to recognize that many black, ordinary Hutus were involved in a massive genocide of Tutsis.

People who hate Goldhagen are simply on denial. —Cesar Tort 13:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please. Nobody denies that ordinary Germans participated in the holocaust. That's completely ridiculous. Are you Daniel Goldhagen? Because you're doing the same ridiculous straw-manning that he does throughout his book and subsequent publicity tour. john k 21:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what exactly are the ideological blinders that prevent most historians from recognizing the supposed merits of Goldhagen's work? Anti-semitism? Germanophilism? Ideological sympathy for, er, Germans who weren't Nazis but still killed Jews? I don't get it. john k 21:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Why ridiculous? I have a ring binder with many critical book reviews of Goldhagen by scholars and lay (Amazon’s) readers. Most of them misrepresent Goldhagen’s POV: for instance, the accusation of the German “collective guilt” (which Goldhagen doesn’t maintain; he only blames the perpetrators).

I don’t think there are ideological blinders among the critics but emotional blinders. When I was in Europe a few years ago I talked to an young Austrian. He told me that people of his age accepted Goldhagen and that resistances came mainly from the older generation. The situation has to do with what psychologists call emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman has written Vital Lies, Simple Truths in which he gives some examples of resistances about the Holocaust among some people.

But even Goleman and Goldhagen himself fall very short. A fuller explanation of the Holocaust can be read here [2] and here [3].

The “blinders” is a fear to the dark side in one’s self. You say you like European history. Do you remember “The Ascent” in The Gulag Archipelago (Part IV, chapter 1)? —Cesar Tort 22:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV reverted

I reverted blatant POV by Tolmerk. It’s just libelous to categorize Goldhagen as “racist” for example. Re Tolmerk’s links added (and reverted by me) just see above. —Cesar Tort 03:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Insinuating that "Exterminating the Jews" can somehow explained with the German national character is in a sense "racist", is in a way justified, wouldn't you agree?!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.2.124.251 (talk • contribs)

No: just take a look at the Afterword and Appendix 3 in the latter editions of the book. —Cesar Tort 20:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words, not referenced

Hey all, as per WP:AWW the criticism section is really, really bad. "Some critics", "others" who? Or are these the complaints of a few wikipedians, masking their criticims in weasel words? Without real critics names, this section is less than encyclopedic. Travb (talk) 10:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I cannot agree anymore with you, Travb. This article has been a regular target of some pov editors who hate Goldhagen. I’ll correct it. —Cesar Tort 06:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, "correct it," nice. The fact is that Goldhagen's work has been heavily criticized by most of the relevant specialists, and is not well regarded at all in the historical community. Most of the prominent German historians that I'm aware of (including Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen, and various others) were brutally harsh, and the reception in the Anglophone world among scholars was not notably better. I've seen a fair number of scholars (such as Omer Bartov) who are critical of much of the German criticism of Goldhagen, but even Bartov doesn't have much to say on Goldhagen's behalf. Although Goldhagen's book was favorably reviewed in some outlets, I can't think of very many actual historians of Nazi Germany who thought much of it at all. The general consensus is that where Goldhagen is correct he is not original, and where he is original he is not correct. The idea that ordinary Germans who were not ideological Nazis were involved in the Holocaust is not one that much of anybody disagrees with at this point. Goldhagen's explanation of this - some kind of uniquely German "eliminationist anti-semitism" that was inherent in German (and no other!) culture before the war, and which vanished without a trace in the years immediately following it - is pretty much universally rejected, I think.

The article as it stands could be perhaps be better sourced and less weasely, but it is certainly not the case that the complaints are only those of "a few wikipedians". Goldhagen's work is not respected by the specialists in the field, and any article which neglects this point would be actively misleading. That, as Cesar says below, Goldhagen has "refuted" his critics seems to be of no particular significance to this article, and should not be dwelt on at length. The arguments of his book are appropriate to discuss here, and ought to be discussed in considerably more detail than they are discussed in the article at present, but I don't think his specific rebuttals of his critics should be gone into at any length. What there ought to be more about is the "Goldhagen Affair" as it were - the public controversy that erupted, particularly in Germany, as a result of the publication of his book. Goldhagen rather brilliantly managed to make leftish historians like Mommsen look like Nazi apologists, and got himself an award from Jürgen Habermas. Whatever his lack of talent for historical scholarship, Goldhagen certainly proved himself an expert in self-promotion. So, anyway, I think the article needs to expand on Goldhagen's thesis (and perhaps to compare him a bit with Christopher Browning, who worked on similar archival materials but came to very different conclusions), and also to discuss rather more the controversy that his book caused in Germany. I don't think that rebuttals of existing rebuttals is a good way to use our energies here. john k 02:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, the Slate article linked has a bunch of quotes by very prominent scholars in praise of the Finkelstein/Birn book. That so many well known scholars would lend their names to a book co-authored by Norman Finkelstein suggests something of the general animus that Goldhagen's work inspired in the scholarly community. john k 02:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the eliminationist anti-Semitism theory about Germany needs to be modified. But Goldhagen’s central thesis that many ordinary Germans were involved in the Holocaust is what caused the flaming debate. Goldhagen wrote a long article about the Finkelstein/Birn book. His arguments should appear in the article. —Cesar Tort 03:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it certainly is not what caused the flaming debate. Everybody knew that many ordinary Germans were involved in the Holocaust. Christopher Browning wrote a book called Ordinary Men about ordinary Germans who were involved in the Holocaust that did not inspire any particular controversy in Germany or elsewhere, but rather was highly praised. What was different was that Browning's thesis was that most of the men were mostly not raging "eliminationist anti-semites," but rather that most of them simply conformed based on peer pressure. One can certainly disagree with Browning, or think that he was perhaps overly excusing the conduct of these men, but it's hard to say that nobody before Goldhagen had said that ordinary Germans were involved in the Holocaust. At any rate, Goldhagen's response to Finkelstein and Birn can perhaps be mentioned, but I don't see that it should be mentioned at length. We should spend more time first to expand the discussion of the thesis of Goldhagen's book. john k 11:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Academics have always been too conservative, even in hard sciences, where, as Thomas Kuhn said, the old paradigmers take their beliefs to their graves: the only way that the new paradigmers gradually gain support. Who saw first the truth and whole truth about the Inquisition? Not academics certainly, but isolated individuals (as Thomas Szasz has noted in his book about the Inquisition and psychiatry). Who saw first the truth and the whole truth about communism? Not academics certainly, but isolated individuals (Orwell, Koestler, Solzhenitsyn).

In the humanities the problem is that we cannot apply Karl Popper’s litmus test to refute hypotheses. But even in humanities there are paradigm shifts. In my opinion, Goldhagen is right in his thesis that historians have to focus on the perpetrators and their motivations, rather than trying to explain the Holocaust through the much more aseptic and politically correct interpretations in vogue before him. I have read Solzhenitsyn’s Archipelago and know that, like Goldhagen, Solzhenitsyn blamed Lenin and Stalin’s willing executioners (and we could say the same about the genocide in Rwanda or Yugoslavia: the perpetrators acted willingly). After Goldhagen’s book, serious historians such as Eric Johnson and Michael Burleigh dared to write books about Nazism that blame the German people in a way that used to be considered politically incorrect before.

However, the subject is huge to be discussed in this talk page. “Due weight” policy doesn’t mean that the most popular lies about Goldhagen have to appear in this article. In one of the previous incarnations of this article I had to delete the plain statement that Goldhagen is Germanophobe. In fact, he does not even adhere to the theory of a collective German guilt.

Anyway, as I said I’ll try to balance the scholarly criticism directed at him, though it will take a while. —Cesar Tort 15:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

What you think about Goldhagen is irrelevant. See WP:NOR.

• I’ve read that. —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

What is important is what major scholars have said about him, even if you think they're "too conservative". What they think about him is, for the most part, that his thesis is deeply flawed, and that his book is not terribly good. And the idea that Goldhagen's view is at all "new" is absurd - the sources he used are exactly the kind of sources that were used by Browning. The argument he is making is basically the same argument made by Lucy Davidowicz, or numerous early writers. To say that Goldhagen "doesn't even adhere to the theory of collective German guilt" is highly dubious - he may say that he doesn't, but a fair number of people have read the book as being more or less an assertion of German collective guilt.

• It was certainly untrue that Goldhagen supports racist or ethnic arguments about Germans (the “Germanophobe" claim in the previous incarnation of this article). —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

He says that Germans, and Germans alone, had developed "eliminationist anti-semitic" ideas that made them, and them alone, uniquely capable of committing the Holocaust. He focuses wholly on German anti-semitism, to the exclusion of discussion even of Austrian anti-semitism, which one would think would be key here, and certainly to the inclusion of discussion of responsibility by French, Romanian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, etc. perpetrators, and the role that anti-semitism in those cultures played in their role in the Holocaust. Goldhagen's argument is peculiarly and oddly focused on Germans (excluding Austrians), and the inherent features of German culture that resulted in the Holocaust. He also says that, somehow, this eliminationist anti-semitism magically disappeared after the war. The argument is not explicitly racist, and we shouldn't say that he is racist against Germans, but there are certainly some strangely racial or ethnic implications in his work. Some critics have suggested that his treatment of non-German anti-semitism comes close to apologetics. john k 21:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I’ve to agree with you on this one: it’s certainly the biggest flaw in Goldhagen’s book. —Cesar Tort 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want to say Goldhagen's ideas are new and important, you'll have to find some major scholar who agrees with that perspective. As far as I've read (and I've read a great deal of the scholarly reception to Goldhagen), the highest praise he's generally received has been that his research on the various police battalions is useful primary research. If you can find something considerably better, go ahead, but we can't obscure the fact that the book is not well-regarded in the scholarly community. By referring to criticisms of Goldhagen as "the most popular lies", you are clearly betraying that you have absolutely no interest in following NPOV policy here.

• I was specifically referring to the above-mentioned “Germanophobe” claim. —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Calling him a "Germanophobe" is obvious

If this is true, why he feels at home with the German public (not academics), when the warmth of the German responses far exceeded Goldhagen’s expectations? —Cesar Tort 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry. That was an incomplete thought - I must have started writing, then moved down to another section and forgotten about it. What I meant to say was that "Calling him a "Germanophobe" is obviously unacceptable." So, the exact opposite of what I appeared to be saying. Sorry for the confusion. I don't remember what I was going to follow up with, but I imagine it was to disagree with you in a more nuanced way. Goldhagen's relationship with the German public is actually quite fascinating, one of the more interesting parts of the whole story. It would seem that he was so charmed by the German popular response to his work that he came to the conclusion that German anti-semitism was a thing of the past, and no longer a problem. Of course, the very people who were applauding his work were the kind of people (Like Habermas, and so forth) who felt that Germany did still have guilt for the war, and were rather embarrassed and upset when Goldhagen started saying that whatever had brought about the Holocaust had somehow been exorcized from the German character.

And to claim that Burleigh's book is somehow only possible because of Goldhagen is completely ridiculous, and unjust to Burleigh (although I think Burleigh's thesis has problems, as well).

Whether or not academics are too conservative, that doesn't mean Goldhagen is right. German academics in the early 1960s were obviously conservative, and their treatment of Fischer was absurd. But Fischer was also defended by younger historians, and their views eventually prevailed. It's been ten years since Goldhagen's book, and he has as yet no prominent scholarly defenders. The idea that Goldhagen's rejection had to do with some kind of inherent hatred by academics for new ideas, and not with the flaws in his own ideas, is ridiculous. Finally, you continue to completely ignore the fact that Goldhagen was utterly unoriginal in focusing on the role of "ordinary Germans". Browning had written on this very subject ages before. Ian Kershaw has done significant work on German public opinion during the Third Reich.

• Did Browning or Kershaw shift the focus of the Holocaust investigation away from impersonal institutions onto specific human beings? Do they restore the notion of individual responsibility? An aspect of academic literature is that these questions are not usually addressed. The flaw with Browning’s views about a purported peer pressure is that Himmler’s order not to coerce Germans slaughter on the Jews was respected. —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Browning ignores that. Browning's point wasn't that German soldiers were forced at gunpoint to murder Jews, or that they faced serious official discipline if they refused. It's that group solidarity and informal internal pressure led many of them to commit these crimes, so as not to be different from everyone else. I don't see this as particularly letting anyone off the hook. And most historians don't let Germans off the hook. There's been a general consensus, I think, that most Germans acquiesced in Nazi anti-semitism, and that many Germans who were not out and out Nazi ideologues participated in serious atrocities. There's long been a general understanding, I think, that those who refused to carry out atrocities were not punished. The question is why so many did so anyway. Goldhagen's answer is untenable. Beyond it being, imo, untenable, it has also been rejected by the vast majority of scholars. If you can find a source who thinks that Goldhagen's idea that ordinary Germans were involved in the Holocaust is original (by a historian, that is - general public intellectuals who reviewed the book are mostly not going to be terribly familiar with the literature, and may think that arguments by Goldhagen are original when they are not), then go ahead and add that. But I think the general consensus is that those parts of Goldhagen's thesis which are unobjectionable - and certainly, the idea that ordinary Germans were involved in the Holocaust has for a while now been considered unobjectionable by most historians - are not particularly original. john k 21:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

“I don't think Browning ignores that...” But certainly he didn’t state it with the ferocity Goldhagen did. —Cesar Tort 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Is stating things with ferocity now the definition of good scholarly work? john k 22:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

In a certain sense: yes! One example: though I was familiar with cold academic studies about the Gulag, I didn’t get the picture until reading the ferocity of Solzhenitsyn’s work. In other words, Mr Spock scholars don’t get it quite well, only moralists. —Cesar Tort 23:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

What is notable about (non-academic) defenders of Goldhagen is that they seem to have almost no familiarity with the recent literature on Nazi Germany, the better to claim that Goldhagen was full of amazing innovations. Once again, what this article most needs to achieve POV is not rebuttals of criticisms of Goldhagen, but a fuller description of Goldhagen's own views.

• Go ahead with this. —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't have the book on me, or any way of getting it until I get back to the States in November, so I'm not the best one to do this for the next few months. Why don't you go ahead with this? john k 21:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The material in that criticism section could probably be improved, but I don't think that summarizing Goldhagen's response to Birn and Finkelstein is the best way to go about this. john k 17:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• Why not? —Cesar Tort 18:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Because it's out of proportion. If you add that, then the whole article is about this one debate between Goldhagen and Finkelstein, which gives a distorted perspective on the whole issue. We ought to talk, as I said before, about the controversy in Germany, and about Goldhagen's book. Finkelstein is a sideshow. john k 21:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The trouble here is that it looks as if Finkelstein is right and Goldhagen is wrong. That’s not NPOV. —Cesar Tort 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think that a lot of what Finkelstein says was right, although a fair bit of it was also wrong. The opinion of the linked Slate piece, and of someone like Browning, represents more or less my opinion on the matter. Finkelstein's claims about where Goldhagen fits into the "Holocaust Industry" and all that garbage, probably obscures and reduces the value of the often well done point by point demolition of Goldhagen's specific claims. Birn's piece is better, I think. It has some problems, too, but also casts pretty grave doubt on some of Goldhagen's methodological assumptions and use of evidence. john k 22:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we ought to remove Finkelstein's claims and leave only Birn's? The alternative is to add Goldhagen’s response to Finkelstein. —Cesar Tort 23:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The article is just gravely imbalanced right now, in general. As I've said before, I think the top priority has to be to get into more detail on Goldhagen's actual thesis. That's the first thing. The second thing is that there isn't very much of Finkelstein's view. His claim about Goldhagen trying to advance zionist causes is mentioned in the opening section, but it is there stated to be "controversial," as indeed it is (although clearly Goldhagen is a hard-line Zionist, and I think it's fair to say that his views on zionism and his views on the holocaust probably derive from the same source, Finkelstein's claims, which amount more or less to claims of academic dishonesty in pursuit of a political point, seem unjustified.) The actual criticism question does not particularly focus on Finkelsteinian complaints. The second and third points appear to largely derive from Yehuda Bauer, and most of the other points, though unsourced, seem to me to be fairly representative of most of the criticism of Goldhagen. The problem is more in the way it is phrased than in the content. I don't like the discussion of "exemplary criticisms", and I don't like the apparent summaries of what historians with primary research experience say. It would be better if more of the criticisms were sourced. I think that the brief mention of Finkelstein at present is fine, and I would add that I hardly think that mention of Finkelstein represents bias against Goldhagen. If anything, the attempt to make Finkelstein into the face of opposition to Goldhagen makes Goldhagen look better, given what a fringe figure Finkelstein is - for instance, a lot of scholars were very critical of Bettina Birn for publishing her piece together with Finkelstein's, including people who didn't think very much of Goldhagen's work. Anyway, I think the problem with the criticism section is mostly that it's written more as an indictment than as a description. The specific points are mostly, imo, correct, but it's written almost as a polemic, and not as an encyclopedia article. john k 00:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pov tag

Once again, unbalanced pov criticism of Goldhagen’s work has been reinserted, this time by another editor: Peregrine981. Therefore, I’m re-posting the tag.

Instead of reverting I will try to balance the pov critical material. I know that each and every one of those criticisms has been rebutted by Goldhagen himself. Though I only have limited time to work on Wikipedia, and only on Sundays, I will try to balance the article on a step-by-step basis (it will take me a while unless another editor joins me in the NPOV-ing process).

Meanwhile the article should retain the tag.

—Cesar Tort 00:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Good. I'm glad that someone can try to balance the article. I would do it myself, but I can't remember the details of Goldhagen's argument. I mostly reinserted and reworded old criticisms which I think are entirely relevant and should not be lost from this article, even if it is unbalanced for the time being. Peregrine981 02:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Peregrine981. I apologize for the tone in my previous response to your re-insertions but in the past there have been editors here who have even written about Goldhagen’s sexual orientation, and I still was in the combating mood when replying to those vandals. Now I know you are different :) Cesar Tort 18:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand completely. Hopefully we can make some improvements to the whole article. Peregrine981 02:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I see that some of the issues people have asked to be treated in the article have been diluted out of revisions dating more than a year back. Take the German reception:

Among the public at large, however, Goldhagen's book has been fairly well received, both in the United States and Germany, and it remained a bestseller for many months. Goldhagen was awarded the prestigious Democracy Prize by the German Journal for German and International Politics, on the basis that his work forced Germans to reckon with the phenomenon of pervasive and violent antisemitism as the result of long-standing historical tendency and a necessary prerequisite to the Holocaust and as such provided a corrective to any notion that an end to the Sonderweg of modern German history was at hand. The laudatio given by Jürgen Habermas. Goldhagen's acceptance speech, which has been understood to argue that such an end was at hand if not accomplished, is often therefore viewed as contradicting the case for the award.

I also tried to make some distinctions about the reception of Finkelstein's arguments, particular in their polemical elements:

Perhaps the most publicised critic of Goldhagen's work was Norman Finkelstein, himself a controversial author. Finkelstein's remarks had two aspects: one was generally scholarly and the other was politically anti-Zionist and polemically charged. These appeared together in Finkelstein's contribution to A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth, which he co-authored with Birn. While much of his scholarly criticism was commended by scholarly peers, Finkelstein's polemical argument and what he takes to be the contemporary political implication of Goldhagen's work is that its characterisation of "eliminationist" antisemitism is an apology of militant Zionism and therefore conservative Zionism in the United States and Israel. Finkelstein claims that Goldhagen advances the view that virulent German antisemitism is intended to be generalisable to most other national groups ("The subtitle of Goldhagen's book is "Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust," but the subtext is "Ordinary Gentiles and the Holocaust") and that by implication, Jews require a state of robust military capability to protect themselves from the enduring threat this engenders.

Finkelstein's scholarly criticism is generally favorably reviewed (for example by Ian Kershaw and Pierre Vidal-Nacquet). Not all of those accepting Finkelstein's scholarly remarks appeared willing to endorse this polemic, such that commendations of his criticsms are sometimes qualified. Charging the issue with polemics about Zionism did, however, serve to displace the issue into a counter-polemic: the possibility of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, which in turn served to blunt broader acceptance of Finkelstein's scholarly objection.

I'm not entirely happy with the current bullet-point organisation either. Previously reception issues were divided into four sections: "Critical Reception of Work", "Criticism of Dissertation Supervison", "Polemical Political Criticism", and "Acclaim". At least some effort is made to categorise and thereby characterise criticisms rather than to lump them together into a laundry list. I wholly agree that a more thorough explication of Goldhagen work should be undertaken, as the current article is largely focused on its reception, which I take to be the grounds for POV objections (even if I find these claims untenably overstated, if I am to judge by their presentation above). Buffyg 00:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Work to do

Hi guys. john k’s 00:37, 21 August suggestions above look interesting. What do you think? For the moment I’m removing this —:

Basic factual errors Goldhagen makes include his belief about the favourable attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward the Nazi party.

—for the simple reason that no single German bishop, Catholic or Protestant, complained about the Holocaust (though they complained bitterly about the slaughter of retarded Aryans by the Nazis). There was even a bishop who welcomed the burning of a synagogue during the Kristallnacht pogrom. —Cesar Tort 01:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but they weren't very happy with Nazism. They were certainly quiet about the holocaust, but they were deeply suspicious of Nazism's pagan mythology and ideology. Now I'm speaking a bit from the haze of time, but I seem to recall that Goldhagen overstates the sympathy of the Catholic CHurch with Nazism, despite the definite ambiguities in their attitude. I remember this being pointed out as a basic factual error. I can't remember exactly where, but I think it deserves to stand. See Nazism and religion .Peregrine981 05:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I don’t claim to have read Goldhagen’s book on Pope Pius XII. If he did overstated his case this should be mentioned in a new section about that book, not in the section of Hitler’s Willing Executioners (the book of our discussion). —Cesar Tort 05:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly he does make an exagerated claim about the German catholic church's sympathy toward Nazism in Hitler's WIlling Executioners. I can't remember precisely though, so if you want to leave it out for now, I'll agree. Peregrine981 05:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

It’s 1:00 AM here in Mexico City and I’m going to bed... If you want to modify the article just go ahead. I’ll catch up once I wake up this Sunday. —Cesar Tort 06:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

In 1935 Karl Barth wrote referring to the Jews: “For the millions that suffer unjustly, the Confessing Church does not have a heart”. And historian Werner Jochmann wrote: “The fearless statements and deeds of individuals [on behalf of the Jews] should not obscure the fact that the Church became a compliant helper of Nazi Jewish Policy” (quoted in Wolfgang Gerlach’s When the Witnesses Were Silent, p. 437). —Cesar Tort 04:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Er, the Confessing Church was a protestant church, surely? john k 22:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess Barth was referring to both the Catholic and Protestant churches. —Cesar Tort 00:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

See Confessing Church. I'm not sure, though, that I understand Barth's criticism, since the Confessing Church was an anti-Nazi protestant movement. john k 15:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] scholars

“If you want to say Goldhagen's ideas are new and important, you'll have to find some major scholar who agrees with that perspective.” (john k, above). What about professor Israel Gutman of Hebrew University, an eminent historian of the Holocaust and editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Holocaust? What about Berlin professor Wolfgang Wippermann, a scholar of the Holocaust and the Nazi period?

I have removed the following sentence from the intro —:

The most common general complaints are that his primary hypothesis is simplistic and either unprovable or ill-formed; that he must rely on substantial factual errors and misrepresentations of primary and secondary sources to demonstrate it; and that his methodology requires unjustifiably selective analysis.

— for the simple reason that it was duplicated in the “Critical reception” section. Cesar Tort 01:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I am glad that competent scholars had the guts to consign Goldhagen's book to the fiction section. Browning's work belongs on the same shelf. Usually scholars buckle to political pressure but these two guys/nuts theses were so extreme that even Harvard couldn't swallow them.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs)

Next time please sign. —Cesar Tort 15:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

What, exactly, did Gutman and Wippermann say about Goldhagen? john k 22:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Among other things professor Gutman, director of the Research Center of Yad Vashem, wrote:

“The truth is that the book attracted upon its appearance the interest of the broad public because it raised anew in an unequivocal manner central questions, which had, intentionally or unintentionally, been pushed aside or were glossed over by the main body of Holocaust scholarship”.

Gutman is not the only scholar who has defended Goldhagen. Markovits, Wipperman and Vogt and Vogt have made dissections of Goldhagen’s critics and their vituperation arguments. —Cesar Tort 00:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

That is not an unambiguous defense of Goldhagen's work. That there has been criticism of Goldhagen's critics is certainly true - you can add Bartov to that list, as well. That is also not the same thing as saying that Goldhagen's work was actually good. john k 15:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

That is to say - Gutman is explaining why Goldhagen's work found a wide resonance. I am perfectly willing to agree entirely with his statement. He is not saying that Goldhagen's answers were valuable. I think the consensus of the historical community is that Goldhagen did not offer much of a contribution on that front. john k 15:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think Israel Gutman has endorsed Goldhagen study in "Daniel Goldhagen and the Incomprehensible Cruelty of the Germans" (Ha'aretz, July 14, 1996). And Wippermann has criticized the unscholarly arguments by the scholars who vituperated Goldhagen in Wessen Schuld? (Elefanten Press 1997).

You seem to lean toward Birn’s critique. Why not take a look at Goldhagen’s lengthy response: “The fictions of Ruth Bettina Birn”? We may include Birn’s (et al) critiques but from a NPOV standpoint. —Cesar Tort 17:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed removal #1

The paragraph —:

[...] a long period of potentially determinative events, including Germany's defeat in WWI, the devaluation of the Mark, the Great Depression, Hitler, Himmler, the T-4 Euthanasia Program, and activities surrounding the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union are excluded from consideration as decisive to the emergence of the Holocaust.

—is erroneous and POV. It should be modified or deleted. Firstly, Goldhagen does not exclude Hitler and Himmler. In fact, he agrees with Milton Himmelfarb’s dictum: “No Hitler, no Holocaust”. Also, Goldhagen did mention the T-4 program. Secondly, the belief that Germany's defeat in WWI, the devaluation of the German mark and the Great Depression are contributing factors is POV. The revisionist interpretation is that research should focus on the people who were the executors, placing the persecution and extermination of the Jews at its center. —Cesar Tort 00:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Already removed. —Cesar Tort 00:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed removal #2

This statement —:

Goldhagen's research quality has been excoriated by many contemporary prominent Holocaust historians, among them Raul Hilberg, Yehuda Bauer, and Ruth Bettina Birn. Setting aside criticism of specific claims from Goldhagen, the three historians just mentioned have independently claimed that Goldhagen lacked adequate familiarity with primary source research and secondary literature in the field, and therefore frequently misrepresented sources, often polemically.

—is POV and should be either deleted or totally rewritten to show both sides of the controversy. Cesar Tort 00:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Already moved. —Cesar Tort 06:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

What's POV about saying that these three all said that three prominent scholars said that Goldhagen lacked these qualifications? They did in fact say this. What's the other side? In case of POV, are not the editing guidelines to provide balance from other sources rather than to make deletions, where the claims are themselves verifiably made by credible sources? Buffyg 21:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right: balancing is preferably than moving. However, it was a pov statement: it omits Goldhagen’s reply to his colleagues. —Cesar Tort 21:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you please provide a cite or edit as to that reply? Buffyg 22:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Goldhagen wrote “Motives, Causes, and Alibis: A Reply to My Critics”. I could do the editing job now – if I had time! I’m just hoping that another editor, who said he’d fix the article next month, finally returns to his country (where he has his personal library). ―Cesar Tort 22:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed removal #3

This statements —:

• Goldhagen's research quality has been excoriated by many contemporary prominent Holocaust historians, among them Raul Hilberg, Yehuda Bauer, and Ruth Bettina Birn. Setting aside criticism of specific claims from Goldhagen, the three historians just mentioned have independently claimed that Goldhagen lacked adequate familiarity with primary source research and secondary literature in the field, and therefore frequently misrepresented sources, often polemically. Broadly speaking, whatever assessment scholars with primary research experience and broad familiarity with secondary works may make of Goldhagen's thesis, criticisms of the level of his research, methodology, and accompanying analysis have been at least as pointed as those of his conclusions.

• Bauer has further observed that Goldhagen lacked familiarity with sources not in English or German, which thereby excluded research from Polish and Israeli sources writing in Hebrew, among others, all of whom had produced important research in the subject that would require a more subtle analysis. Bauer also argued that these linguistic limitations substantially impaired Goldhagen from undertaking broader comparative research into European antisemitism, which would have demanded further refinements to his analysis.

—are POV and should be either moved or rewritten. Cesar Tort 06:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem whatever with the second statement. It presents Bauer's POV as such, not claiming it to be "the truth" or anything similar. The first could be reworded. Peregrine981 04:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism?

This person (Goldhagen) may best be compared to David Irving. It is untolerable that POV pushers are active here and engage in vandalism on this page. Aosser 19:10, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

You can label me a vandal but the article is POV and correction is necessary under the Wikipedia policies.

John K, Peregrine and other editors of this article: do you think it’s NPOV to label Goldhagen a Germanophobe, as Aosser did it (among many other POV insertions) in his most recent edit? Cesar Tort 21:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

A bunch of people are labelled as antisemitic in Wikipedia (Category:Antisemitic people), so why shouldn't germanophobic people be labelled so? Different standards cannot be tolerated. Prominent (Jewish) scholars like Fritz Stern have pointed out that Goldhagen is a Germanophobe. Aosser 09:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

John k wrote above: "Calling him a 'Germanophobe' is obviously unacceptable." —Cesar Tort 14:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If we can find reliable sources, citing prominent people saying he's a germanophobe, then I say mention that, by saying X has alleged that Goldhagen is a Germanophobe. We can't simply label him as a "germanophobe" since that is obviously very POV, and I very much doubt that Goldhagen would agree with that label. Peregrine981 18:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Totally disputed

Lance6968 has written in edit summary―:

This article reeks of hostility towards Goldhagen from beginning till end. There are several cogent historians whose work supports Goldhagen: Why are they absent from the article?

―and I wholly agree with him. While my previous steps in NPOVing the article were not exactly the right steps, I hope the right ones will be taken by other editors more familiar with history than me. ―Cesar Tort 18:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perspective and Nuance

The problem with Goldhagen's work is fundamental: He posits a monolithic universal thesis that virtually all Germans--and Germans alone--developed over the centuries a unique version of anti-Semitism: "eliminationist" anti-Semitism. Anyone who has studied European Jewish history ought to know that anti-Semitism was found in almost all countries, and was indeed greater in many countries than in Germany. Examples are Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, and Austria itself. After the Anschluss, Jews suffered far more in Austria than in Germany from cruelty, humiliation, physical attacks, and all these by the very ordinary people on whom Goldhagen focuses. I have studied the Holocaust over twenty-five years, and still grapple with the questions with which Goldhagen attempts to deal. Yet, I personally cannot understand how a simplistic, conversational-level point of view managed to garner so much attention. Christopher Browning's work offers a more realistic more nuanced analysis of the central question in understanding the Holocaust: Why did so many people engage in terrible acts of cruelty and brutality to other human beings, and only a few resist the tide of mass action? The fact is that some few people--in all countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, etc.--did indeed risk their lives and their loved ones to save people whom they did not even know. This fact flies in the face of Goldhagen's simplistic "analysis." That, and the existence of anti-Semitism even more virulent in countries other than Germany, are what renders Goldhagen's work unacceptable in the scholarly world of historical research. 207.237.240.221 04:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC) Allen Roth

A major problem with Goldhagen's work, his idea that many ordinary Germans had to be involved in the holocaust, is that his idea is correct. The problem comes because more people mean more leaks, means more documents to keep them working together, etc. So far - other than "code words" - the holocaust is about as undocumented as an event can get. Keeping "many" people all so quiet for all these years would be impossible. The small - almost tiny - group of people ( not just the prosecuted ) who the traditional story has running this whole operation - the holocaust - in total secret while totally out in the open is of course stupid. But his idea turns out to be equally as stupid. That leaves ....159.105.80.141 15:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)