Language:
English
Year of publication:
2000
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
14,3 (2000) 331-366
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
War criminals
;
Genocide Psychological aspects
Abstract:
There are seven widespread socio-psychological models which aim to explain the behavior of Nazi mass murderers. Two of them regard the perpetrators as "peculiar people" - either committed Nazis or disturbed persons. The other five consider them as "ordinary people", pushed to mass murder by external factors such as commonly-shared bigotry, pressure of their milieu, fear, bureaucratization of the murder, material or career considerations. Testing these models, surveys the biographies of 1,581 persons who were involved in Nazi genocide. Examines their origins, religious affiliation, social background, careers in violence and Nazism, etc. Concludes that those born in Germany (90% of the sample) correspond more to the "real Nazi" model. Two-thirds of them were long-term Nazis, a third had been prewar extremists, and almost all had had experience in violence. The perpetrators came mainly from the "core Nazi constituencies". Their biographies illustrate social processes, institutional cultures, and power relations involved in the radicalization of the Nazi movement to the point of genocide.
DOI:
10.1093/hgs/14.3.331
URL:
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