Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust - Tapa dura

In this work the author asks the question "How could the Holocaust happen?" and in his response explores German society and its ingrained anti-semitism, that demands a revision of thinking of the years 1933-1945. Using testimonies from the actual perpetrators, the book shows that the killers were ordinary Germans who were not compelled to act as they did, could refuse without retribution, yet who killed willingly. The book presents a new view of the Holocaust and shows that ordinary Germans believed extermination of Jews to be both necessary and just.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is Associate Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University and an Associate of Harvard's Minda de Gunzberg Centre for European Studies. He was awarded Germany's Democracy Prize for HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS.