Ideology of Death: Why the Holocaust Happened in GermanyIn many nations throughout history, the Jews have been reviled and persecuted, regarded as cunning heretics and destructive social parasites. But only in Germany did racist stereotypes evolve into a popular ideology of such lethal force that it ended in the horror of the death camps. Despite a vast literature about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, we do not yet understand why the destruction of the Jews was conceived and implemented by the Germans. Ideology of Death supplies this understanding in a stunning and disturbing narrative history. Exploring the unique nature of the German experience as well as the annals of anti-Semitism, Mr. Weiss rejects the notion that the Holocaust was a product of Nazi fanaticism. He shows instead how racist ideas ingrained in German culture led to the unthinkable. Tracing the culture of racism and anti-Semitism among powerful elites and ordinary Germans, Mr. Weiss shows how it grew rapidly during the Napoleonic era, became a forceful popular ideology in the 1870s, and in the 1890s gained the dedicated support of the generation that eventually brought Hitler to power. "German Jews became the victims of a uniquely powerful culture of racism", he writes. "Without this historical base, anti-Semitism would not have exploded with such fury after 1918, producing hundreds of thousands of followers whose ideas were no different from those of the Nazis". Drawing on the latest research, Mr. Weiss describes how the Nazis, building on traditional German anti-Semitism, adjusted their appeal to a wide variety of social groups that were crucial to their electoral success. The Nazis' extraordinary popularity "could not have occurred if Hitler's hatreds were unique", theauthor points out. Nor could the actions against the Jews, leading to their destruction. Most Germans saw nothing wrong with such actions. Mr. Weiss explains the specific complicities of various German groups and institutions in the Holocaust, and why they voluntarily cooperated with the Nazis. |
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Page xi
... course , but Jewish boys were not welcome in his school . I am bothered by the assumption of many scholars that an interest in anti - Semitism indicates Jewish origins , and the companion idea that it is somehow not a " normal ...
... course , but Jewish boys were not welcome in his school . I am bothered by the assumption of many scholars that an interest in anti - Semitism indicates Jewish origins , and the companion idea that it is somehow not a " normal ...
Page 146
... course , a failure the Marxists shared with liberals - underrating the potential political power of anti- Semitism . Socialists assumed that racism was simply a means to distract the attention of ordinary citizens from social injustice ...
... course , a failure the Marxists shared with liberals - underrating the potential political power of anti- Semitism . Socialists assumed that racism was simply a means to distract the attention of ordinary citizens from social injustice ...
Page 148
... course , led the bat- tle to keep sociology out of the university curriculum , decrying it as un- German and a threat to patriotic unity because it explained poverty and crime as results of the inequities of the social system rather ...
... course , led the bat- tle to keep sociology out of the university curriculum , decrying it as un- German and a threat to patriotic unity because it explained poverty and crime as results of the inequities of the social system rather ...
Contents
The Christian Legacy | 3 |
Luther and the Reformation | 20 |
The Enlightenment | 36 |
Copyright | |
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