Warning: Undefined array key "visitor_referer_type" in /var/www/vhosts/wordinf.com/core/app/libraries/Core.php on line 98
Clive James - The Holocaust would have been...
The Holocaust would have been unimaginable without the Nazi Party; the Nazi Party would have been unimaginable without Hitler; and Hitler's rise to power would have been unimaginable without the unique circumstances that brought the Weimar Republic to ruin. To hear Goldhagen tell it, mass murder was all set to go: a century-long build-up of eliminationist anti-Semitism simply had to express itself. But the moment when a historian says that something had to happen is the moment when he stops writing history and starts predicting the past. (Clive James)

The Holocaust would have been unimaginable without the Nazi Party; the Nazi Party would have been unimaginable without Hitler; and Hitler's rise to power would have been unimaginable without the unique circumstances that brought the Weimar Republic to ruin. To hear Goldhagen tell it, mass murder was all set to go: a century-long build-up of eliminationist anti-Semitism simply had to express itself. But the moment when a historian says that something had to happen is the moment when he stops writing history and starts predicting the past.

Clive James

Related topics

express historian history holocaust mass moment murder party past power predicting republic rise ruin set something tell unique writing circumstances hitler anti-semitism stops nazi build-up eliminationist

Related quotes