Tätervolk
 Perpetrator People    | |
|---|---|
| Type | Epithet |
| German word meaning 'Perpetrator people' and applied by Orthodox Judaism to the alledged collective guilt of Germans as a race of people for the events of World War II - with particular emphasis on The Holocaust | |
A slogan/epithet meaning "Perpetrator people". It encalsulates the thesis of collective guilt, which postulates that a people/race is morally responsible for criminal acts of it leaders. It refers to a nation as a whole as culprit for immoral and inhuman acts. In spite of having a theoretically universal applicability, its usage originated - and is largely confined to - alleged German guilt for the events of both World War I and World War II, in particular "The Holocaust"
Usage was given additional impetus following the publication of Daniel Goldgagen's 1996 book Hitler's Willing Executioners [1]. It The racist nastiness of the concept is perhaps best illustrated by Elie Wiesel' infamous injunction:
Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate — healthy virile hate — for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. [2]
Readers are invited to juxtapose the positions of the Words German and Jew in that piece of vitriol and consider what would happen to the person promulgating it - especially if he/she was a German.
Repudiated by the Nuremberg Trials
German collective guilt was specifically repudiated by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
- ↑ Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust - ISBN 0349107866
- ↑ Winfrey selects Wiesel's 'Night' for book club Associated Press 16 January 2006
