What are Daniel Goldhagen’s logical criteria for an adequate explanation of the German perpetrators’ conduct in the Holocaust

What are Daniel Goldhagen’s logical criteria for an adequate explanation of the German perpetrators’ conduct in the Holocaust

1. What are Daniel Goldhagen’s logical criteria for an adequate explanation of the German perpetrators’ conduct in the Holocaust? Why does Goldhagen reject explanations of the perpetrators’ conduct (including Browning’s) that rely upon situationally specific factors? Why is Goldhagen skeptical of attempts to apply the experimental findings of social psychology to explain the German perpetrators’ conduct?

2. In his afterward to Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning (a) critiques Daniel Goldhagen’s account of German anti-Semitism, (b) insists that comparable Nazi killings took place against non-Jewish victims, (c) criticizes Goldhagen’s use of evidence from the Jozefow massacre, and (d) rejects a monocausal account of the perpetrators’ motivation. Review the reasoning and evidence that Browning uses to make these objections.

3. Did Browning in your view appreciate Goldhagen’s reasoning? How did (or how might have) Goldhagen come back to overturn each of these four objections in turn?

4. Adopt your own perspective to present your own overall assessment of the relative merits of each author’s approach in explaining the German perpetrators’ conduct. You may want to consider the relative range of facts each is able to cover, the relative simplicity of the competing explanations, the factual adequacy of each, the depth of detail the competing explanations cover, and other criteria of adequacy. What in your view are the critical pieces of evidence that tip the scales in favor of one author?

In grading your essay, we will be looking at whether you discuss each of the subpointsabove, whether you have an apt range of examples from the readings, and whether your ideas are clear and consistent. You do not have to cite pages or remember specific names, but you should be able to paraphrase or adduce as many examples as possible to back up your conclusions.

The readings are :

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men, second edition only. Preface and pages up to page 25, 38 to 48, 55 to 87, 97 to 103, 121 to 132, 159 to 242.

Hitler’s Willing Executioners, especially pages 1-14; 80-128; 179-280; 327-371, 375-462.