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Two messages...
1.
Submitted by: Jorg Bottger
jxb171@psu.edu
Having just read Goldhagen's response to Ruth Bettina Birn's review, I can
only say: It's getting pretty ugly!
In my view the problem lies with Goldhagen, who has attacked the
scholarship of other authors (e.g., Arno Mayer and Christopher Browning)
and now receives some flak himself. There is nothing unusual about this
procedure. What is unusual, however, is Goldhagen's alleged attempt to
silence a critic with legal means. Goldhagen wants to establish his
interpretation of the Holocaust as the new orthodoxy, plain and simple.
Historians should counter this trend with detailed and informed criticism
of Goldhagen's work. Here I have in mind something along the lines of
Dieter Pohl's "Die Holocaust-Forschung und Goldhagens Thesen" in
'Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte' 45 (January 1997): 1-48. This is
an exemplary critique! I have yet to read a review of similar quantity and
quality in English or American journals.
In addition, historians should not shy away from bringing this issue to
the attention of larger audiences via popular magazines (The New Yorker,
The Nation etc.) and speaking engagements. Or, are today's ivory towers
too comfi to leave them?
Jorg Bottger
Penn State U.
(jxb171@psu.edu)
2.
Submitted by: Andreas Kunze
Andreas.Kunze@FernUni-Hagen.de
Pondering about "Criticism in Jeopardy" in general, and the book under
discussion in particular, I would like to throw in a word on the
extraordinary situation engendered, both in public and scholarly
discourses, by that very book. I think the Jeopardy question, in this
case, should not be handled in a more or less abstract (insurance etc.)
fashion alone; it also ought to be assessed against the issue at stake.
The issue at stake, to my mind, is the unusually harsh and at
times downright unfair treatment, by fellow historians, both in
Germany and the US, of that book's author. For evidence: certain
utterances of renowned academicians, USHMM symposium, April 1996, as
reported on H-German--and similarly or even more disturbing
contributions could easily be adduced from the German "front".
I would like to take up here Richard Wiggers' question: what are the
limits, in terms of "manners", in scholarly criticism? - At any rate,
given this climate of almost unanimous rejection, with little or no
recognition of the book's undeniably great merit (viz. drawing attention
to "the Nazis" as Germans, focusing on individual deeds and individual
suffering, as well as putting back the Destruction of the Jews into the
context of German cultural history)--given this considerably nerve-racking
situation, it could perhaps be argued that the author felt prompted to
react in an equally maladjusted way, through possible legal action, and
that, of course, in a (on the whole: reasonable) scholarly community,
clearly means that he over-reacted.
The criticized author would be very well-advised to stop any legal
action--I agree with Alan Kennady--and to consolidate his innovative
insights into modern German history, maybe on a scale less grand than in
the book under discussion, in future publications.
Andreas Kunze, FernU-The German Distance Teaching University,58084 Hagen;
andreas.kunze@fernuni-hagen.de;tel x2331.9874209; fax x2331.688896
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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