Before examining the role played by Hitler and the Nazi elite in the instigation of the final solution, it is necessary to first examine the nature of the anti-Semitism which pervaded German society long before Hitler came to power. In his book 'Willing Executioners', Daniel Goldhagen presses the argument that ordinary Germans were, in fact, partly liable for the Holocaust and deserve a degree of blame for the events that unfolded. In setting the scene for his analysis of the role played by ordinary Germans in the mass killings, Goldhagen draws attention to what he describes as “the persistence of a widespread, profound German cultural animus towards Jews that evolved from an early Nineteenth Century eliminationist form to the more deadly
