Daniel Goldhagen

Research papers on Daniel Goldhagen demonstrate the importance of his extraordinary work, Hitler's Willing Executioners. Paper Masters can write your research paper on Goldhagen or his work, examining any aspect of the German phenomena of the holocaust. Possible topics to focus on can any of the following:

• Research the psychological elements in Goldhagen's work
• Write on any other incidence in history where the collective psyche was what Goldhagen described in Hitler's Willing Executioners
• Write a biography on Daniel Goldhagen

A research paper on HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS reveals that during the Nazi years, Germany underwent a severe manpower shortage due to the war effort. Resultantly, they put many Jews and non-German prisoners to work. Often, slaves were shot or shipped off to concentration camps for little or no reason. The German public that lodged and oversaw them, could not have been blind to their fate. As the author of HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, Daniel Goldhagen observed, "If the men and women using slave laborers are included then the number of Germans who perpetrated crimes might run into the millions". Goldhagen also points out how the German public's churches partook in casting out Jewish members who had become converts to Christianity. This ostracizing occurred at a time when such an action was " an ecclesiastical imprimatur of genocide" due to the fact that being cast out by the community almost certainly meant an eventual trip to the camps. Finally, the case is made of units such as the Police Battalion 101.

Daniel Goldhagen and his Research

Police Battalion 101 was specifically made up of a "representative cross section of the German nation, many of them married and raising families, men not specially selected or trained for the task of slaughter", according to HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS. Their job was the mass extermination of Jews in Poland following the German army's conquest of that country. The men of this special battalion could have declined the job - but did not. Furthermore, the wives of Police Battalion 101,

were often allowed to watch the torture and slaughter of Jews, being entertained by the German equivalent of the U.S.O. the visiting entertainers asked a special favor to kill some Jews themselves, and the favor was granted.

The presence and role of 'ordinary' Germans such as the core of Police Battalion 101 and the clergy is important in answering the question of to what extent was the German public informed about the death camp activities. It sheds light on another large factor in the equation - fanatical racism - at a national level if not entirely individual.