In his masterful book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” Daniel Goldhagen destroyed that myth and proved conclusively that Hitler and the Nazis had widespread support among ordinary Germans, and that many, if not most, of them were aware of Hitler’s final solution.
This historical reality did not necessarily justify the deliberate killing of German civilians by Great Britain and the United States in Dresden and other German cities, but it made the civilian adult “victims” of these bombings somewhat less sympathetic, and it made it easier to blame their deaths on the Nazis who started the war with widespread civilian support, if not enthusiasm.
A similar mythology is already emerging around the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians. Government officials, the media, academics, and others pretend as if there is a sharp distinction between Hamas and the ordinary decent civilians of Gaza.
[The White House keeps promoting this mythology, too. In the end, it’s irrelevant. Gazans put Hamas in power through democratic means, just as Germans did with the Nazis, and then stood by and watched Hamas seize dictatorial control without any significant dissent — unlike some Germans in the 1930s. They own this war and its consequences. — Ed]
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