January 27, 2000

Author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen to Present “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” Lecture on Feb. 14

Author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen of Harvard University will give a lecture, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust,” at 8 p.m. on Monday, Feb.14 in the Concert Hall of the Middlebury College Center for the Arts on Route 30. He is the author of a book by the same title, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996 and was named one of Time magazine’s two best non-fiction books that year. The book has also been published in more than 15 countries, including Brazil, China, Germany, Israel, and Serbia. The lecture is free and open to the public; a free reception will follow.

For his book, Goldhagen drew on material either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars. The New York Review of Books stated, “ ‘Hitler’s Willing Executioners’ is an original, indeed brilliant contribution to the … literature on the Holocaust.” The New York Times referred to Goldhagen’s work as “masterly,” and called it “one of those rare new works that merits the appellation ‘landmark.’” Goldhagen points to his research as proof that Holocaust perpetrators were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members but “ordinary” Germans from all walks of life.

Goldhagen is a lecturer on social studies at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies. From 1992-1998, he was an associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard where he earned a bachelor’s degree in social studies in 1982, and a doctorate in government in 1992.

Goldhagen’s articles and opinion pieces have appeared in a number of publications, including The New York Times and The New Republic. He is currently working on a book on genocide in the 20th century to be published by Alfred A. Knopf. Goldhagen has appeared on such national television and radio programs as “Today,” “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” and “All Things Considered.”

For more information, contact Charlotte Tate of the Geonomics Center for International Studies at Middlebury College at 802-443-5795 or by email at tate@middlebury.edu. The lecture is co-sponsored by Middlebury College’s German and political science departments, European studies program, Hillel, Geonomics Center, and the Curt C. and Else Silberman Chair in Jewish Studies.