Fritz Stern

German history teaches that malice and simplicity have their appeal, that force impresses, and that nothing in the public realm is inevitable. It also proves that democratic reconstruction is possible, even on initially uncongenial ground.

Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust--condemning the German "eliminationist" mindset toward Jews--has become an international bestseller and a datum in German-American relations. Pity, because it is a simplistic, monocausal, and unhistorical explanation of one of the most complex horrors in history. For Goldhagen, as for the Nazis, Hitler is Germany.