----- Original Message -----
From: <GEVANS613@xxxxxxx>
To: <heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 6:30 PM
Subject: Heidegger Not Very Exceptional After All?
> Aaron Bronfman
> Cold Spring Harbor High School
> New York, USA
> In Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners,
Goldhagen
> attempts to explain what could have motivated the German people to abet
the
> murder of six million European Jews. His central thesis is that the
> perpetrators of genocide in Nazi Germany were not a small group of SS
zealots but
> hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans who killed with the acquiescence
of
> millions more.
> One of his most convincing examples is that of Police Battalion 101. Due
to
> manpower shortages during the war, the police battalions could not be
composed
> only of fanatical Nazis or impressionable youth; instead, they recruited
a
> representative sample of German society. Members came from all
occupations,
> and the proportions of Nazi-Party and SS members approximated those in
Germany
> as a whole. Goldhagen describes in gruesome detail the actions of these
men,
> which often involved explicitly targeting children and the elderly, who
could
> not work in the camps. The murders, however, were not forced upon the
> battalion, as revealed by the members' testimony. In Police Battalion
101, the
> choice to opt out of the murders was offered both before the first
killings and
> after. Out of 550 men, only twelve declined to take part, and they were
not
> harmed in any way.
> The haunting question is what could have compelled the members of Police
> Battalion 101 and other German institutions to such voluntary cruelty.
Goldhagen
> disproves the five conventional explanations for the perpetrators'
actions.
> The theory that the perpetrators were forced by authorities is disproved
by
> testimony from the police battalions and the astounding fact that there is
not
> one verified case of anyone's being sent to a concentration camp or killed
> for not obeying an execution order, despite the extensive efforts of the
> Nuremberg defense.
> A second theory, supported by psychology experiments, is that people, or
> Germans in particular, will instinctively obey orders that come from a
source
> perceived to be legitimate. This is disproved by a remarkable action taken
by
> one of the commanders in Police Battalion 101. He, upon receiving an order
that
> his men sign a declaration obligating them not to steal, sent a written
> refusal to his superiors. He felt his honor impugned and refused to obey
an order
> he believed was wrong, although his men had already killed tens of
thousands
> of Jews. The third explanation amounts to "peer pressure," which could
only
> work if a majority of Germans favored the genocide. The remaining two are
> career advancement, which was not a factor for most of the working-class
> soldiers, and lack of comprehension of Hitler's Final Solution, which
certainly
> cannot be applied to face-to-face murderers.
> Goldhagen presents his own explanation, namely that an "eliminationist
> antisemitism" had been present in Germany since the Crusades. He maintains
that
> antisemitism was not being continually refuted and readopted, but that,
although
> it remained latent at some time, it was always present. He stresses the
> differences between the dominant beliefs in Germany about the various
persecuted
> groups; the Jews were thought to be willfully malignant and bent on
> destroying Germany, while the Slavs were considered simply inferior. His
theory
> explains the wide discrepancy in monthly death rates among groups in the
work camps
> (e.g. 100% for Jews and 4% for Poles) and is the only explanation that
> creates a tenable motive for the perpetrators' actions. Overall, Hitler's
Willing
> Executioners presents a coherent, well-supported argument that ordinary
> Germans, motivated by an eliminationist antisemitism, knowingly and
willingly
> took part in the Holocaust.
> Jud:
> But who gave Heidegger HIS orders? Did he NEED them? Did he give HIMSELF
> [will to will] the orders like the McGonagall's Dasein, as "that which
relates
> Dasein to a stituated clearing?"
> Comments? No? Yes? Don't Know?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jud
would be interesting to see Goldhagen's parallel analysis of collective
jewish guilt in Sharon's eliminationist policy, ...perhaps "germans not
very exceptional after all".
Goldhagen doesn't consider that nazism saw jews as an internal enemy
betraying the fatherland,
...not unlike what the neo-cons are doing to us, ...and that killing the
enemy is about the most anthropologically unexceptionable phenonenon there
is, no?
...this holocaust industry stuff is drivel.
bob
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