ion 101, that these men were ‘ordinary’ and not fanatical anti-Semites. Browning believes that these men, or at least most of them, succumbed to peer pressure, obeyed their orders, and hoped to advance themselves. When looking at Goldhagen’s statistics the largest groups of men were employees at a lower or intermediate level (pg207). Though Goldhagen has made a clear and valid point that these men were not boys it is important to also look at their status in society.It is of common knowledge that the largest group of people to suffer in the Holocaust was the Jews, but what about other victims? In Goldhagen’s novel the explanation of the protests against the Euthanasia program are clearly described as Germans upset only because these victims were Germans but deemed ‘Life unworthy of life’. The Euthanasia program saw “German physicians take the lives of more than seventy thousand people”. Here Goldhagen has a very valid point but it does not convince me that the Germans have a strong history of anti-Semitism. These protests, show that the “(1) Germans recognized the slaughter to be wrong, (2) expressed their views about it, (3) openly protested for an end to the killing, (4) suffered no retribution for having expressed their views and for pressing their demands, and (5) succeeding in producing a formal cessation of the killing program, saving German lives.” As Goldhagen’s view is a valid, one I must wonder about the awareness factor. These Germans protested because their loved ones were being killed and they were clearly aware of their deaths. As it is clearly known, the extent the Jews being killed was not so clear for it was not so close to home and even as a Nazi, the chain of events were very spread out so the full magnitude of the horrors were not so evident. I am sure that some knew and were anti-Semites but can Goldhagen make such a large claim to an entire ...
