Background
Goldhagen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, first engaged in serious academic discourse concerning the Holocaust following a lecture he attended as a student of Harvard University in 1983. He gained prominence in the field with the publication of 1996's Hitler's Willing Executioners, which met acclaim and controversy, particularly in Germany. The Journal for German and International Politics awarded him the Democracy Prize in 1997. In awarding the prize for the first time since 1990, the Journal wrote "Because of the penetrating quality and the moral power of his presentation, Daniel Goldhagen has greatly stirred the consciousness of the German public."
Invited by The New Republic to review several books concerning Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Goldhagen was inspired to write a review of the literature concerning the question of the "culture of antisemitism" in the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II and its impact on the Holocaust. His impressions first appeared as a lengthy essay in the January 21, 2002 edition of The New Republic entitled "What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust" before their publication by Knopf in extended book form as A Moral Reckoning.
Read more about this topic: A Moral Reckoning
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