We are at war. You can pretend we can be one country again, but we can't.

[coalition_unwilling]

121. It wouldn't be academia without 'critics'. I must confess I have

not stayed fully abreast of the criticism of Goldhagen's work, even though I know of it. AFAIK, though, Goldhagen's central thesis - that the average German both knew and approved of the Nazi's genocidal program - still stands.

I am not familiar with Rosenstrasse. I can see I have some significant gaps in my own historical knowledge of the time. Thanks for the tip and I will be checking it out this weekend.

I will say this: even the Pope in Rome knew by 1941-2 what was going down in the killing centers in Poland. So to think that the average German did not understand what 'transport East' meant demands a level of credulity that can't be sustained for very long. (I like your notion of a spectrum of awareness, btw, as it seems to do the most justice to the human experience as I understand it.)

Nadin subsequently clarified that she was referring to the Holocaust being inconceivable to most Germans in the mid-30s, a position with which I also agree.