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The cover of Hitlers Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Hitlers Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

An inquiry into why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust, drawing on police battalions, labor camps, and death marches to examine obedience, coercion, and antisemitic belief.

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20 parts, about 41 minutes to read.

At a glance

Author
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Parts
20 parts
Reading time
about 41 minutes
The whole book
Also to read in full

What the summary covers

  1. Introduction: The Perpetrators and Their Choices2 min
  2. Analyzing Antisemitic Beliefs2 min
  3. From Christian Hostility to Racial Elimination2 min
  4. Exclusion in Nazi German Society3 min
  5. Changing Policies, Enduring Aim3 min
  6. Who Counted as a Perpetrator2 min
  7. Police Battalions in the Killing System2 min
  8. Police Battalion 101 at Józefów and After3 min
  9. What the Battalion's Choices Reveal2 min
  10. Ordinary Lives Around the Killing2 min
  11. Why Put Jews to Work?2 min
  12. The Work Camps2 min
  13. Work and Destruction1 min
  14. The Deadly Way2 min
  15. Marching to What End?3 min
  16. Testing the Explanations3 min
  17. Eliminationist Antisemitism and Opportunity2 min
  18. The Nazi German Revolution1 min
  19. A Note on Method1 min
  20. Three Nazi Era Images Compared1 min

Read it alongside

  • Pushes backOrdinary Men

    Goldhagen explains widespread willing killing through prior eliminationist antisemitism; Browning disputes making this the unifying account of the same battalion, emphasizing conformity and varied motives.

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