Acquire Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans And The Holocaust Drafted By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Readable In Version

not that some of Goldhagen's ideas are wrong, He makes a valuable contribution by recognizing the history of antiSemitism in Germany history prior to WWII and the Holocaust, However, this ideological goal blinds him to any other rational to the causes of the Holocaust, In his effort to prove the exceptional nature of German hatred and bigotry, he ignores the wealth of evidence from a variety of social scientists pointing out the general cruelty and inhumanity of humanity in general.
In doing this Goldhagen makes breathtaking generalities and grossly misinterprets a lot of evidence that would help disprove his idea of German exceptionalism, Also, his focus on German crimes during the Holocaust blinds him to the genocide perpetrates in other European countries by other European nationals, The crimes of the French, Poles, Lithuanians, etc, . . are all forgotten in this book, While Goldhagen's outrage is natural, especially given that he is the son of Holocaust survivors his scholarship is poor and his methodological work is sloppy at best.
It always amazes me that people, who have constructed their own paradigms, and have worked vigorously at maintaining it, can ignore the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
At most Goldhagen provides an explanation as to why people do the things they do regardless of their social or economic background, At worse Goldhagen brings to light one possibility in explaining how one, if not the most learned and advanced country in the world could fall from grace in a matter of a few years of Financial despair.
At the same time it should be understood that it was the created genus of Hitler and his party in capturing with total control such a country in the first six months as Chancellor of Germany.
Goldhagen has written an outstanding book that to this reader explains not just the German question in which I am a descendent, but the overall question throughout history being, “What the hell were they thinking!” Some church leaders have wondered aloud why there has been no nationwide, popular outrage over the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug personalities addicts, pushers, drug lords in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's socalled "War on Drugs.
". I think the template for this curious phenomenon had already once existed in the past, It is not at all new,


First, is the identification of these drug personalities as an evil, powerful enemy of the State, Something that threatens the very survival of the nation, President Duterte had estimated the drug addicts numbers to be around three to four million which he claimed would surely multiply rapidly to millions more unless stopped.
He said he is the countrys last chance to prevent this certain catastrophe as he spoke of the very near possibility of the Philippines turning into a narcostate, controlled by narcopoliticians.
It is a very grim picture indeed,

Second, is the DEHUMANIZATION of this enemy, One time he had asked, in a serious tone, if these addicts are “still human, ” He also said once that a person who had been an addict for two years had no more functioning brain to speak of and is already completely “hopeless.
” He warns addicts not to leave their houses anymore, though there had been several instances of these extrajudicial killings done inside the houses of the victims, some of them shot to death while sleeping.



That these drug personalities are perceived to be no longer human, or had become SUBHUMANS, is wittingly or unwittingly suggested in the language of those who had expressed approval of these killings, some of them directly “kill them all!” and some indirectly “lets support this war on drugs!”.
Netizens who applaud President Dutertes method, for example, label these drug personalities as “mga patapon” useless, goodfornothing, animals, criminals and the scourge of society.
One time, in the context of the then coming Miss Universe contest in the Philippines, Senator Sotto said that DESPITE the daily killings, the Philippines is a safe country.
One would wonder how a country afflicted with DAILY unsolved murders by the dozens could possibly be “safe,” but if one would consider that the victims are subhuman entities with no rights, then the statement of the senator makes perfect sense.
The society is indeed safe, safe for people, because those falling victims to this violence are more just like stray dogs being put to permanent sleep.



President Duterte had warned several times: “If you destroy my country, I will kill you, ” The people had long shared this worldview of drug personalities destroying the country and of them already beyond the clutches of normality that they had become less of a human being than the upright citizens of this country.
This, even before President Duterte stood in the limelight of national politics,


This is the mindset that has gripped the nation and it is eerily similar to the antisemitism so very popular and strong in Germany in thes which catapulted Adolf Hitler into power precisely under that platform.
The drug personalities in the Philippines today were the Jews in Germany and Europe during Hitlers time, International Jewry was then likewise perceived to be a powerful force which had brought, and will continue to bring, untold misery to the German nation and will usher its complete destruction unless eliminated.
Similarly, this prevalent antisemitism was also based on the widelyheld conviction that the Jews are subhumans

who can, or OUGHT to, be removed from the face of the earth.
Antisemitism was very strong in Germany, but was not confined there, The American General George S, Patton, for example, even in the aftermath of the Holocaust, had expressed the view that Jews are “lower than animalsa subhuman species without any of the cultural or social refinements of our time.
”


Some friends of mine had opined that the comparison is way off because, they reasoned out, the Jews were “innocent” while the drug personalities we have now including the addicts are “guilty.
” But I merely point out to them: during those times, the Jews were looked down upon as scoundrels, criminals and as guilty as hell, possibly in much worse way Filipinos consider the drug personalities as heinous criminals now.



Some church leaders are speaking out now against these extrajudicial killings but you dont see any of the great churches here in the Philippines using their economic, moral and political clout to the fullest to stop these killings, possibly stymied by President Dutertes continued popularity.
Not even all the Philippine churches are speaking out, This was similar to what had happened in Germany during the Nazi era:


“The German churches provide a crucial case in the study of the breadth, character, and power of modern German eliminationist antisemitism, because their leadership and membership could have been expected, for variety of reasons, to have been among the people in Germany most resistant to it.
The churches retained a large measure of their institutional independence, they contained many people who regarding other matters harbored nonNazi and antiNazi sympathies, and their governing doctrines and humanistic traditions clashed glaringly with central precepts of the eliminationist project.
The abundant evidence about their leaderships and memberships conceptions of Jews and stances towards the eliminationist persecution merely confirms and, because it is a crucial case, further strengthens greatly the conclusion that among the German people, the Nazified conception of Jews and support for the eliminationist project was extremely widespread, a virtual axiom.



“Not only the churches and their leadership but alsovirtually the entire German eliteintellectual, professional, religious, political, and militaryembraced eliminationist antisemitism wholeheartedly as its own.
The German elite and ordinary Germans alike failed to express dissent from the Nazi conception of Jewry in,,, and, although the nature and statue of the Jews was one of the most relentlessly discussed subjects in the German public sphere.
No evidence suggests that any but an insignificant scattering of Germans harbored opposition to the eliminationist program, save for its most brutally wanton aspects.
Even violent antiNazi diatribes typically did not dwell on the eliminationist antisemitism or measures as reasons for hating and opposing the Nazis, Germans not only failed to indicate that they believed the by nonNazi standards criminal treatment of the Jews to be unjust, They not only failed to end help to their beleaguered countrymen, let alone foreign Jews, But even worse for the Jews, so many Germans also willingly aided the eliminationist enterprise, They did so by taking initiative to further it, by attacking Jews verbally and physically, or by hastening the process of excluding and isolating them from German society and thereby accelerating the process of turning Jews into socially dead beings and German Jewry into a leprous community.
”“Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen


Another common thing between Germany then and the Philippines now is the concept of collective guilt.
Sure, some drug personalities before had committed rape, murder and other barbaric crimes which, to the outraged citizens, truly deserved the harshest punishment, But those being extrajudicially killed now are obviously not those who did these crimes of long ago, some of them having been already meted out the punishment they deserved.
The drug personalities being targeted now for execution, sans trial, are deemed deserving of their fate not because of personal guilt but merely guilt by association.
This was similar to the Holocaust where people were killed regardless of nationality, religion, political belief or personal history but simply because of their Jewish blood.
That was why even babies and young Jewish children were shot or gassed in the Nazi crematoria,


Hitler was likewise a much beloved leader, who took power via a democratic election and was considered as Father Tatay to the German nation.
To the Germans, he was a saviour, almost godlike, that they could lovingly write about him like this:


“For years we have been following with the greatest inner sympathy and approval the uplifting work of Adolf Hitler, this German man who, filled with ardent love for his fatherland, is sacrificing his life for his idea of a purified, united, national greater Germany, who has set himself the hazardous task of opening the eyes of the working class to the enemy within and to Marxism and its consequences, who as no other has managed to bring people together in brotherly reconciliation, has been able to do away with the almost insuperable class hatred, who has restored to thousands upon thousands of despairing people the joyous hope of a reviving, dignified fatherland and a firm belief in it.
His personality has made on us too, as anyone who comes into contact with him, a deep, moving impression, and we have understood how such s simple, physically delicate man is capable of exercising such power.
This power is founded on the moral strength and purity of this man, who without ceasing stands up for an idea he has seen to be right, which he is trying with the fervour and humility of divine vocation to realise.
Such a man, who is standing up so directly for good, must inspire, electrify people, animate them with selfless love and devotion for his person.
I freely admit that we too are under the spell of this personality, that we too, who stood by him in happy days, will remain faithful to him now too in his hour of need.
” “Twilight of the Wagners: the Unveiling of a Familys Legacy” by Gottfried Wagner,


What we see now, for me, is but History repeating itself, Unfortunately it has decide to resurrect here, in our clueless nation which is seemingly condemned to suffer the unlearned lessons of the past, .