I read in Sir Ian Kershaw's Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933-1945”, p.277, Oxford University Press a very famous quote, which stated:
"The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference?"
How do you interpret this. To mean Kershaw is saying that the process and progression up to the building of Auschwitz was vitriolically anti-Semitic, however the common populace of Germany were indifferent to what was occurring.
Do you agree/disagree with this statement and also my interpretation, and why?
Also, what is your opinion of Goldenhagen's eliminationist antisemitism theory? That the whole German society had this deep vein running through its history of Anti-Semitism, one that was uniquely awful in comparison to every other country? Goldenhagen was lambasted by most Historians, do you think this is fair/unfair, and why?
Golenhagen writes at the end of his book Hitler's willing executioners:
“The conclusion of this book is that antisemitism moved many thousands of "ordinary" Germans— and would have moved millions more, had they been appropriately positioned—to slaughter Jews. Not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social psychological pressure, not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were pervasive in Germany, and had been for decades, induced ordinary Germans to kill unarmed, defenseless Jewish men, women, and children by the thousands, systematically and without pity.”
Note: I have little insight on these whatsoever. I want to hear from the people of r/AskHistorians to see what they think of these two Historian's ideas.
Thanks
Hi! You might be interested in some previous answers on how much people were aware of the Holocaust during the war? .