'Extermination/Ausrottung': Meanings, ambiguities and deceptions in German antisemitism and the Holocaust, 1800-1945

This paper looks at the deeper patterns of German behaviour and mentality, without respect to anti-Semitism, which made it possible for the Holocaust to be carried out with the wide acquiescence of large segments of the population. The most important of such patterns is that created by the absence of what Germans call Zivilcourage: a pattern that is marked by the evasion of moral responsibility and a tendency to rationalize amoral or immoral conduct. At the same time,with respect to the history of anti-Semitism itself, looking at the subtle continuities that are not always visible in the usual histories of German anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.