From nobody@replay.com Fri Sep  6 13:58:48 PDT 1996
Article: 62994 of alt.revisionism
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Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 14:19:53 -0400 (EDT)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
From: nobody@replay.com (Los Angeles Times Copyright Terrorist)
Organization: Replay and Company UnLimited
Subject: Re: Holocaust Scholar Well Recieved in Berlin
Summary: Goldhagen's book is #4 on Der Spiegel's bestseller list
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tm@pacificnet.net (tom moran) writes:

A selective edit of a story in today's Los Angeles Times. At least the
source he used actually exists.

>       L.A.Times, 9/6/96

Page A-12.

>       "Holocaust Scholar Well Relieved in Berlin"

By Mary Williams Walsh, Times Staff Writer

>"WW II: Controversial
>author whose book indicts
>'ordinary Germans' over 
>Nazi atrocities is cheered
>in face-off with critics.
.>
>       Berlin -- The controversial U.S. scholar who has out raged
>critics by calling the Holocaust a embraced 'German national project'
>was embraced by a standing room only ...

.audience here Thursday, speaking to respectful citizens of the country
that held his father in a concentration camp half a century before.

>       Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, a 37 year old Harvard University
>political scientist ...

.was in Berlin to promote the new German edition of "Hitler's Willing
Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust." The 600-page book
argues that countless ordinary German citizens--and not just card-carrying
members of the Nazi party--were willing to torture and murder Jews during
World War II.

>       The book triggered an international debate when it appeared in
>English earlier this year, with critics complaining that Goldhagen had
>conducted his research unscientifically, left out important areas of
>inquiry ...

.and failed to address Germany's many postwar efforts to atone. 

        The critics have also accused Goldhagen, the son of a Romanian
Holocaust survivor, of bias and have blasted his core thesis: that
anti-Semitism was a universal, guiding principle of German society until
1945.

>       But in Berlin on Thursday, when Goldhagen faced off with three
>German critics, the audience, which included Jews and non-Jews,
>appeared eager to support the embattled author.
>       'Good, he is correct!' gushed an elderly woman, a Lithuanian
>concentration survivor would identify herself only as Mrs.Katz ...

.Even today, she said, she didn't want people in Berlin to know she
agreed with Goldhagen, for fear of losing business contacts. 

>       Ordinary Germans 'knew exactly what they were doing' ...she said.

.during the 1930s and 1940s, she said, deflating the common "we didn't
know" argument and echoing Goldhagen's disturbing statement that
"Regarding Jews . . . every German was inquisitor, judge and executioner." 

>       Although there was almost no publicity for the panel discussion,
>the 'Jewish Community of Berlin', had to turn away spectators.

[In the original, 'Jewish Community of Berlin' is not in quotes. He also
seems to have forgotten elipses for the two paragraphs omitted here.]

        Inside, many in the audience punctuated Goldhagen's remarks with
applause and snapped up signed copies of his book offered for sale on a
table.

        Released last month, the German edition of "Hitler's Willing
Executioners" is No. 4 on Germany's bestseller list, compiled by Der
Spiegel magazine. It has sold out in some bookstores.

>       At times, as the three German scholars tried to explain what they
>saw as the failures of Goldhagen's work, the session took on the tone
>of a personal attack, and members of the audience rushed to take
>sides.

[The original reads:]

.the session took on the tone of a personal attack. Goldhagen heatedly
defended himself, and members of the audience rushed to take sides.

[You see, in the original, it's clear that Ms. Walsh is talking about
personal attacks *on Goldhagen*. The editing above makes it seem as if
were Goldhagen *making* the personal attacks.]

>       Listeners gave their worst drubbing to Hans Mommsen, one of the
>most well-published and widely cited Third Reich scholars in Germany.
>....

.Mommsen accused Goldhagen of looking at German history far too
narrowly, focusing only on anti-Semitism as the driving force behind the
Holocaust. He said that other key factors--including economic collapse,
fear of communism and ignorance--had helped shape German behavior.

        Goldhagen retorted that analyzing the Holocaust without focusing
on anti-Semitism would be like writing a book on American slavery without
paying any attention to racism. That answer won him loud applause.

        Mommsen then attempted to suggest that the Germans serving as cogs
in Hitler's Holocaust machine had no idea of the extent of the evil that
they were caught up in. Many in the audience groaned.

>       'Let me ask: Does anyone here, other than professor Mommsen,
>think that the people who were slaughtering the Jews weren't aware of
>what they were doing?' demanded Goldhagen, and the groans turned into
>laughter and more applause. No one in the room raised their hand."

[Minor edit: original reads "raised a hand."]

                                  - 30 -

>                  -------------------------------
.>
>       So was he "Well Received"? Seems so. But only at the facilities
>of the "Jewish Community of Berlin". 

It's the name of a building. Why did you put it in quotes?

>       How many people were there? The article doesn't say. "Standing
>room only"? Evidently only room full.

"Many in the audience groaned."

>       How many of the "Jews and non-Jews" were Jews, and how many were
>goyims? The article does not say.

I wasn't aware that they wore yellow stars these days.

>       "Almost no publicity" for the Goldhagen visit? Why not?

Probably because they knew there would be a crowd.

>       So it seems Goldhagen was "well received", but only by a few, and
>at a Jewish facility.
.>
>       Holocaust revisionism coming to Germany by popular demand in the
>future? We can wait and see.

Since Goldhagen's book is #4 on Der Spiegel's best-seller list (as
indicated in a part of the story you edited out), I doubt it.

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