Language:
English
Year of publication:
1989
Titel der Quelle:
Political Psychology
Angaben zur Quelle:
10,1 (1989) 39-52
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
A paper presented at the Ninth Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Amsterdam, July 1986. Argues that perpetrators of harmful acts learn by doing, and gradually become capable of greater violence. The Nazis progressed from depriving the Jews of their rights to mass murder, creating an elaborate ideology to justify their actions. Similarly, "bystanders" who remain passive while others suffer tend to devalue the victims. In Nazi Germany most people were semi-active participants in the system; they took part in boycotts, distanced themselves from Jewish friends, and filled positions that the Jews were forced to leave. Thus, members of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute who chose to stay in Germany complied with the system, distanced themselves from persecuted colleagues, and changed psychoanalytic ideas to fit Nazi ideology. Some actually joined the perpetrators - e.g. in the euthanasia program. Intellectuals, including analysts, who stayed in Germany were a self-selected group whose ideological background or opportunism made this accommodation easier.
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