How far were the German people responsible for the Holocaust?

The first 200 words of this essay...

How far were the German people responsible for the Holocaust?

The Oxford compendium defines responsible as liable to be called to account,

morally accountable for one's actions; capable of rational conduct and being the primary cause. Popular historiography is contrasted over different historian's views on whom or what was responsible for the Jewish1 pogrom. This question in its current vernacular gives the distinct impression that the German people did already have something to do with the holocaust and that they were either wholly or partly to blame for it. This however leaves doubt as to whether there is any possible outcome, where the German people having no responsibility at all. A historian whose book2 is written in complete controversy to this is Daniel Goldhagen. His book was written largely to rebut the claims of Christopher Browning as to German motives. Goldhagen's view is that the German people not only knew about the Holocaust but they were actively in favour of it. This is because of a supposedly truculent anti-Semitism in the German nature3. Other historical scholars of the Holocaust have rejected Goldhagen's work as marketable but at the expense of academic quality and integrity. As I