Source 7 contradicts the common understanding of how the Holocaust happened. To what extent were Hitler and the Nazis responsible for the Holocaust?

If we are supposed to use this secondary source to shape our answer to this question, we should look at the last paragraph in the source.  This gives us a good, neat answer.  Hitler and the Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust in that it would never have happened without them.  However, they were not fully responsible for it because (according to Goldhagen, at least) many Germans were terribly anti-Semitic and were therefore happy to...

If we are supposed to use this secondary source to shape our answer to this question, we should look at the last paragraph in the source.  This gives us a good, neat answer.  Hitler and the Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust in that it would never have happened without them.  However, they were not fully responsible for it because (according to Goldhagen, at least) many Germans were terribly anti-Semitic and were therefore happy to help Hitler and the Nazis to achieve their evil goals.

At least according to this secondary source, the usual explanation for the Holocaust is that the Nazis were the only ones responsible.  Most Germans did not really know what was happening and those who did know were forced to accept it and even to help carry out the Holocaust.  This source contradicts this idea.  It tells us that Germans from all social strata participated in the Holocaust and that they did so willingly.  They knew that they did not have to kill Jews and yet they did so anyway because they hated the Jews.

Assuming that this is true, we can then say (as Goldhagen does in the last paragraph) that the Nazis are still mostly responsible for the Holocaust.  The German people might have been willing to help kill Jews, but there was no sign that they would have actually done so if Hitler had not come along.  Hitler and the Nazis, then, are responsible for the Holocaust because it was their idea.  They preached that it was necessary.  They created the organization that made it happen.  They encouraged people (even if they did not, according to Goldhagen, force them) to participate.  Without them, the Holocaust would never have happened.