Book Notes : Hitler's Willing Excutioneers by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

endnote book note 

Hitler's Willing Excutioneers by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen p506 footnote 95 

Mosse, in "From 'Schutzjuden' to "deutsche Staatsburger Jüdeischen Glaubens,'" Writes that during the 1880s and 1890s, "there can be little doubt that without [the state's] neutrality and [its] maintenance of law and order, where necessary by force, a wave of pogroms would have swept Germany with incalculable results"' (p90). For a vivid account of a man bursting to assault Jews physicall, but who was restrained by the limits imposed by the state, see Erich Goldhagen, "The Mad Count : A Forgotten Portent of the Holocaust," Midstream 22, no 2 (Feb 1976). Goldhagen writes "Mere words, however, did not satisfy the Count – he thirsted for action. But the pleasure of striking at Jews physicaly was denied to him by the Imperial Government which, while condoning barking against Jews, would not tolerate the beating of them. Count Pueckler, therefore, chose to vent his passions through make-believe gestures. At the head of a troop of mounted peasants, whom he had especially arrayed for the occasions, and to the fanfare of trumpets, he would lead cavalry charges against imaginary Jews, striking them down and trampling them under foot. It was a spectacle affording a psychic equivalent for murder. It was also a remarkable prefigurement of the FinalSolution" p61-62

Sometimes we presume people are rational beings and think there must be some logic or reason behind things but sometimes people are just nuts.