Goldhagen, Daniel

Often it is considered sufficient to cite portions of documents out of their proper context, or arbitrarily select a few documents from many others of relevance. The well-known book by Daniel J. Goldhagen represents in effect the climax of this approach,138 and it has been massively criticized for this even from the establishment side. However, Goldhagen s work is merely the logical, radical conclusion of this general tendency to selectively interpret source materials. Consequently, the criticism directed at Goldhagen generally reflects poorly on his establishment critics themselves.139 Two prominent examples for such poor historiography are the well-known authors Jean-Claude Pres-sac and Danuta Czech. Both profess to reconstruct the history of Auschwitz (or Ausch-witz-Birkenau) on the basis of documents and, in the case of Danuta Czech, also of eyewitness testimony. 

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler s willing executioners (New York, 1996). 

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