Language:
English
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Social Science History
Angaben zur Quelle:
21,2 (1997) 139-178
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
Abstract:
Proposes to apply the "techniques of neutralization" - expounded by G.M. Sykes and D. Matza to explain criminality - in an approach to the Holocaust and genocide, and to explain the participation of many ordinary Germans in mass murder. Refuting the allegation that the Nazi executioners were "inhuman monsters", explains the process by which people became agents of genocide by denial of responsibility (the argument of many perpetrators that they were following orders); denial of injury (by developing a technical language of camouflage and euphemisms); denial of victim (asserting that the victims deserve whatever happens to them, and depicting the Jews as a mortal threat); appeal to higher loyalties (the Final Solution viewed as a hard but patriotic duty); denial of the victim's humanity (which allowed the violation of moral or religious traditions).
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