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Back in high school I took an elective class on Genocide & the Holocaust, we were told that Allgemeine SS camp guards were allowed to 'transfer' but the transfers were automatic to a Waffen SS combat unit on the Eastern Front with it's horrific casualty rate.
Think there are people out there everywhere even now who would willingly kill you without any remorse because of your race, religion or political beliefs. In a normal society they are restrained by government. In a repressive environment where the powers to be create scapegoats the blood letting begins.
I think any discussion of this nature should watch - carefully - this video. Please, do not forget that partakers were simple regular citizens, not soldiers.
I think any discussion of this nature should watch - carefully - this video. Please, do not forget that partakers were simple regular citizens, not soldiers.
Yes they should. A friend of mine was taking a psych class and this was a topic they covered. It's interesting it was stopped early, since it had already gotten way out of hand. They didn't expect this. Then there are the simulated torture experiments where normal people of all ages were told they were 'helping' in an experiment, and most continued to do as told, upping the severity of electrical shocks on victums (who were acting but they didn't know) as they were told to do. This study was done in the fifties, I think, and the results were a great shock to both researchers and the public.
That's part of what happened. It didn't start with the industrial death camps, but rifles shooting prisoners over pits. And as time went on, whatever sensitivity there was faded. You don't step up to the last part first, but build.
As for guards, they had the same journey. They might not have anticipated what they found, but knew not to object. Once you make that choice, the rest is easy. You've made the decision which puts you on the road towards inhumanity. You've chosen to follow obedience over humanity.
There are always some individuals who can't or don't take that route, but they are a much fewer, and if they are fully committed in a real situation may simply become another victum so their words aren't out there to remember.
Bottom line is unless one has been there, do any of us really know? What would be 'enough' of a motivation to do as told, buy the line? What makes the cost too great to give in? What if it builds a mini step of a time, until there is no way out?
On the other hand, I question if those who were 'trapped' into becoming the abusers and executionors can really call that a defense if back before they knew better and it was their chose not to pay the price of refusal.
Yes they should. A friend of mine was taking a psych class and this was a topic they covered. It's interesting it was stopped early, since it had already gotten way out of hand. They didn't expect this. Then there are the simulated torture experiments where normal people of all ages were told they were 'helping' in an experiment, and most continued to do as told, upping the severity of electrical shocks on victums (who were acting but they didn't know) as they were told to do. This study was done in the fifties, I think, and the results were a great shock to both researchers and the public.
That's part of what happened. It didn't start with the industrial death camps, but rifles shooting prisoners over pits. And as time went on, whatever sensitivity there was faded. You don't step up to the last part first, but build.
As for guards, they had the same journey. They might not have anticipated what they found, but knew not to object. Once you make that choice, the rest is easy. You've made the decision which puts you on the road towards inhumanity. You've chosen to follow obedience over humanity.
There are always some individuals who can't or don't take that route, but they are a much fewer, and if they are fully committed in a real situation may simply become another victum so their words aren't out there to remember.
Bottom line is unless one has been there, do any of us really know? What would be 'enough' of a motivation to do as told, buy the line? What makes the cost too great to give in? What if it builds a mini step of a time, until there is no way out?
On the other hand, I question if those who were 'trapped' into becoming the abusers and executionors can really call that a defense if back before they knew better and it was their chose not to pay the price of refusal.
Shooting in pits was messy and of course out in public which meant witnesses. Also more than a few German generals or other commanders objected because if nothing else the base drew water from local wells. Large pits of dead bodies could contaminate ground water supplies with corpse water.
Shooting in pits was messy and of course out in public which meant witnesses. Also more than a few German generals or other commanders objected because if nothing else the base drew water from local wells. Large pits of dead bodies could contaminate ground water supplies with corpse water.
I'm sure though the public nature of it was an unmistakable warning to everyone that they meant what they ordered and whatever rules were announced. After a while the shock would wear off and they'd lose that but at the start it would send an unmistakable message.
One problem they had was some of their own soldiers who were not cut out to be executioners were very damaged. And while pictures were forbidden, they got taken. Soldiers who talked about it or brought home souvieners or pictures where transfered to places a lot never came home.
As explained in the article linked below, the perpetrators were brainwashed into believing that Germany needed more "lebensraum" (agriculturally productive land for its large population) since it had few overseas colonies, and that non-Aryan Germans were using up food and resources that pure Aryan Germans needed to survive. This is why the Nazi's started out with propaganda posters proclaiming that mentally challenged, handicapped, and unemployable Germans were a financial burden on the nation during its great Depression, and should be institutionalized and then secretly euthanized (like young Pope Benedict's brother or cousin? unfortunately was). Later on, Jewish babies were killed using the justification "Germany has finite resources. If we don't kill these subhuman babies, we won't have food and resources for ourselves."
Do any accounts exist where people expressed disgust at what they were doing, sadness, confusion, inner conflict, whether it was immoral, etc.?
There are a few. In contrast to the "refusal to obey equals death" claims, German regular police units did allow men who objected to murdering people chances not to participate directly. Instead, these men would be assigned to guard the trucks, or maybe only to round victims up, but not to actually kill them. Other batallions did not force men to participate in "hunting patrols" where any Jewish straggler was murdered. What is surprising is that so few of the men in these police batallions asked to be excused.
Perhaps the biggest way that some German police commanders avoided wrestling with their feelings was to get other people to do their dirty work for them (when possible). For example, some German police batallions would only murder men, but would farm out the murders of women and children to local collaborators. Others would round people up for execution, but then arranged for armed locals to do the actual murders.
There is a awesome series on right now. Its on the american heroes channel . It explains first hand accounts and interviews of children , and SS guards that worked the camps and how they were treated with chocolate and other sorts of things. Link below . It is an excellent series detailing your question.
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