But does Goldhagen’s methodology avoid bias? What in practice is Goldhagen’s standard for judging testimony as self-exculpating and thus to be excluded unless corroborated? For Goldhagen testimonies are “in all likelihood” self-exculpating if the witnesses deny giving “their souls, their inner will and moral assent” to the killing.56 In short, testimony about any state of mind or motivation at odds with his initial hypothesis is excluded unless corroborated, and finding corroborating evidence concerning state of mind—given the absence of contemporary letters and diaries—is nearly impossible.
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