Language:
German
Year of publication:
1988
Titel der Quelle:
IDCIV-Vorträge
Angaben zur Quelle:
28 (1988) 1-27
Keywords:
Hitler, Adolf,
;
National socialism Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Based on a lecture delivered in May 1988. Analyzes the psychological mechanisms which enabled Nazi leaders to suppress their own and their followers' consciences and to carry out the mass murder of Jews as a bureaucratic procedure. On the basis of the talks of Hans Frank, Nazi governor of occupied Poland, with the prison psychologist during the Nuremberg Trials, suggests that the followers were partly seduced by Hitler's personality and partly motivated by personal weaknesses and ambitions. also discusses Hitler's ideological justification of the Final Solution. Notes that Nazis always spoke in abstract generic terms of "the Jew" rather than of Jews as concrete individuals who might arouse pity. Refutes Hitler's claim that in fighting the Jews he was following in the steps of Jesus. Argues that in fact he saw in the Jews the embodiment of conscience, of answerability to God, which it was his aim to extinguish.
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