ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a disquieting possibility that has been largely neglected by students of the Holocaust. This is that the approach to the question of Nazi guilt is substantially out of line with normal thinking about moral responsibility and in particular with usual notions of mitigating circumstances. If there is an inconsistency in people's attitudes to the Nazis and to other wrongdoers, it can in principle be removed either by toughening up judgements of the latter or by softening those of the former. Christopher Browning has rightly urged that people discard the old clichés that to explain is to excuse, that to understand is to forgive. Empathy requires a certain amount of knowledge of the victims, and people know a great deal more about individuals slaughtered in the Holocaust than they do about persons executed for witchcraft. Contemporary historians try to understand witchcraft trials from the point of view of the prosecutors as well as the prosecuted.
