Language:
French
Year of publication:
2002
Titel der Quelle:
Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah
Angaben zur Quelle:
175 (2002) 133-175
Keywords:
Hilberg, Raul,
;
Arendt, Hannah,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Holocaust (Jewish theology)
Abstract:
A study of the psychological mechanisms that enabled the perpetrators of the Holocaust to overcome their moral conflicts and develop from occasional to professional murderers. Based on the theories of Raul Hilberg, suggests that the Nazi crime consisted in turning the act of murder into work, a process which required creativity and personal initiative. The psychic mobilization which this entailed caused internal conflicts and moral-practical suffering. The defense mechanism of "banalizing evil" developed to protect the mental health of those running the bureaucratic enterprise of genocide. This mechanism was the key to the "success" of the Holocaust and to the Germans' overcoming 2,000 years of Western morals. Emphasizes the collective aspect of the development of this defense and relates it to submission, another defense serving the purpose of maintaining psychic "normality".
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