This paper compares and contrasts two influential historical interpretations of how the Holocaust could have occurred in a modern society. Daniel Goldhagen argues that deep-seated antisemitism — fueled by post-WWI resentment and Nazi ideology — made ordinary Germans willing participants in the mass killing of Jews. Christopher Browning, by contrast, emphasizes psychosocial pressure: a culture of fear and peer conformity compelled ordinary soldiers to commit atrocities. Drawing also on Doris Bergen's caution against oversimplification, the paper evaluates the strengths and limitations of both arguments, ultimately suggesting that the Holocaust's causes were multifaceted and that no single interpretive framework is fully adequate.
The Jewish Holocaust has inspired countless theories about how such an atrocity could take place in a seemingly humane and otherwise "normal" society, as Germany was in the 20th century. In other words, Germany was not fundamentally different from any other society or culture in the modern era — and yet understanding how the Holocaust could have happened, how human beings of the modern era could participate in such a mass killing, has long been the subject of historical debate. This paper compares and contrasts the arguments of Daniel J. Goldhagen and Christopher R. Browning, both of whom offer a distinct account of how such an atrocity could occur.
The central substance of Goldhagen's argument is that Germans were able to participate in the killing of Jews because, under Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the idea that Jews were responsible for all of Germany's ills was heavily promoted.1 It was not, therefore, a matter of ordinary Germans becoming or acting like monsters, but rather of them following through on what they perceived to be the just deserts of the Jew for his role in humiliating and dragging down Germany. The Holocaust, in other words, is described by Goldhagen as a natural outcome of antisemitism, which Germany embraced following World War I and the disastrous Treaty of Versailles. The "ordinary Germans" were literally "animated by anti-Semitism" of the popular political machine of the time.2
The essence of Browning's argument, by contrast, is that ordinary German soldiers were essentially pressured into committing these atrocities. The all-consuming, overwhelmingly militaristic triumph of the Reich's propaganda machine masterfully bent the will of ordinary Germans, making them afraid to step out of line, break ranks, or go against the will of the Führer and the Reich's other leaders. According to Browning, it is a purely psychosocial affair: "a peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms."3 A culture of fear, in other words, drove Germans to persecute Jews — to refuse would have meant becoming subject to persecution oneself. It was, therefore, a "better you than me" mentality that allowed it to happen, according to Browning's argument.
"Both arguments oversimplify complex historical causes"
"Treaty of Versailles and Nazi ideology fuel hatred"
"Reich propaganda mechanized German participation"
Neither Goldhagen's nor Browning's assessment of the factors that could have supported the Holocaust need be taken as doctrine. For that matter, Bergen's own rationale, by her own logic, can be viewed with some skepticism. The affairs of human beings can never truly be explained by simplistic concepts or perspectives: life is always more dramatic and full of conflicting currents, and there does not have to be a single interpretation of events that serves as a catch-all. In fact, the more closely one examines events of this magnitude, the more puzzling they can sometimes seem to be.
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