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The last line resonated with me a lot "In every case of documented refusal to obey orders to exterminate people, the coercive powers of the Nazi system proved t

The last line resonated with me a lot "In every case of documented refusal to obey orders to exterminate people, the coercive powers of the Nazi system proved to be impotent or ineffective." I would have expected the opposite. I guess this means, the structures of society and rule of of law were actually sort of still working, but that most people feared going against the zeitgeist.

choeger 8y ago
In fact, the Nazis had perverted the law and its rule but retained the structure of a lawful state, as chaos and anarchy were pretty much out of fashion in Germany after the 20s. Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters winning some decent hotel in a game of poker. They had to retain the reception, the service personal and the kitchen. But they behave disgustingly at every opportunity.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  "Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters" Only that they were quite educated. Not the lower troops of SA. But the party members were very much into classical education, classical music etc. And they totally went by law and order. "Just" a different order. With racism as its core fundamentals and the neglect of humanism in general.
  - choeger 8y ago
    It was a metaphor.
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      I know .. but many people have this picture of the Nazis. So I wanted to clarify ..
- durnygbur 8y ago
  > Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters Not at all e.g. most of the Wannsee Conference attendants had "Dr." title. Numerous responsible for massacres of civilians or inhumane medical experiments had the "Dr." title. The so called elite can turn into monstrosity as well. It's not "the primitives" which are the real threat most of the time. "The primitives" gain power only after the the elite is purged and/or expelled - see the first decades in Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution, or Stalinism in Poland.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  There's nothing stopping a highly educated person from being an absolute monster, as we've seen repeatedly throughout history.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters Actually lots of highly educated people were Nazis, including Nazi leaders and apologists. Including people considered by their (even Jewish, even post WWII) academic peers, as the "biggest thinkers" of the 20th century. Heck, Mengele had 2 Ph.Ds (anthopology and medicine).
  - razakel 8y ago
    Oskar Dirlewanger had a PhD in political science, and commanded a unit so brutal that an SS court was convened to investigate. Imagine how horrific someone's actions must be when even the SS think they might be going too far.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters This is such a ridiculous claim to make. There is absolutely no correlation between Evil and Stupidity. And pretty much every fact of that time disagrees with the theory that Germany was led by idiots and uneducated people. On the contrary, you should be all the more afraid when smart people turn evil.
  - choeger 8y ago
    This was not a claim, although I very much doubt the intellectual capacity of Himmler, Göring, or Keitel. It was a metaphor. The Nazis had as much regard for the rule of law as a drunk member of a street gang may have for the correct placement of the several forks and knives and a dinner table.
leftyted 8y ago
This is an important point that is too often left unsaid. People today have an image of the Nazis organizing the deportation and murder of the Jews in a top-down fashion while everyone who wasn't German powerlessly looked on. But, actually, the Holocaust happened at the scale that it did because people went along with it. And not just the Germans; also the people in occupied countries, and in some cases even the Jews themselves. In places where people didn't go along with it, the Holocaust was ineffective, and survival rates were much higher. Some places where people did not go along are (famously) Denmark and (less famously) Bulgaria. These countries managed to save the vast majority of their Jewish populations (though in the case of Bulgaria, Macedonian and Thracian Jews were murdered). 75% of French Jews survived the war because the French largely protected French Jews (though stateless Jewish refugees living in France fared much worse).
- ufmace 8y ago
  Yes, I have read that, and find it... I'm not sure of the best word, maybe daunting? From what I've read, the Wannsee conference was convened with the expectation that they would have to convince a bunch of middle-management bureaucrat types that switching to organized mass-murder was necessary. Apparently, much to their surprise, everyone agreed right away, and immediately started coming up with their own ideas to make it run more smoothly and efficiently. Apparently, nobody at all raised any objections or even dragged their feet at the idea of organizing mass murder.

choeger 8y ago

In fact, the Nazis had perverted the law and its rule but retained the structure of a lawful state, as chaos and anarchy were pretty much out of fashion in Germany after the 20s. Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters winning some decent hotel in a game of poker. They had to retain the reception, the service personal and the kitchen. But they behave disgustingly at every opportunity.

hutzlibu 8y ago
"Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters" Only that they were quite educated. Not the lower troops of SA. But the party members were very much into classical education, classical music etc. And they totally went by law and order. "Just" a different order. With racism as its core fundamentals and the neglect of humanism in general.
- choeger 8y ago
  It was a metaphor.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    I know .. but many people have this picture of the Nazis. So I wanted to clarify ..
durnygbur 8y ago
> Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters Not at all e.g. most of the Wannsee Conference attendants had "Dr." title. Numerous responsible for massacres of civilians or inhumane medical experiments had the "Dr." title. The so called elite can turn into monstrosity as well. It's not "the primitives" which are the real threat most of the time. "The primitives" gain power only after the the elite is purged and/or expelled - see the first decades in Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution, or Stalinism in Poland.
jplayer01 8y ago
There's nothing stopping a highly educated person from being an absolute monster, as we've seen repeatedly throughout history.
coldtea 8y ago
>Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters Actually lots of highly educated people were Nazis, including Nazi leaders and apologists. Including people considered by their (even Jewish, even post WWII) academic peers, as the "biggest thinkers" of the 20th century. Heck, Mengele had 2 Ph.Ds (anthopology and medicine).
- razakel 8y ago
  Oskar Dirlewanger had a PhD in political science, and commanded a unit so brutal that an SS court was convened to investigate. Imagine how horrific someone's actions must be when even the SS think they might be going too far.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
ekianjo 8y ago
> Think of the Nazis as a gang of uneducated mobsters This is such a ridiculous claim to make. There is absolutely no correlation between Evil and Stupidity. And pretty much every fact of that time disagrees with the theory that Germany was led by idiots and uneducated people. On the contrary, you should be all the more afraid when smart people turn evil.
- choeger 8y ago
  This was not a claim, although I very much doubt the intellectual capacity of Himmler, Göring, or Keitel. It was a metaphor. The Nazis had as much regard for the rule of law as a drunk member of a street gang may have for the correct placement of the several forks and knives and a dinner table.

leftyted 8y ago

This is an important point that is too often left unsaid. People today have an image of the Nazis organizing the deportation and murder of the Jews in a top-down fashion while everyone who wasn't German powerlessly looked on. But, actually, the Holocaust happened at the scale that it did because people went along with it. And not just the Germans; also the people in occupied countries, and in some cases even the Jews themselves. In places where people didn't go along with it, the Holocaust was ineffective, and survival rates were much higher. Some places where people did not go along are (famously) Denmark and (less famously) Bulgaria. These countries managed to save the vast majority of their Jewish populations (though in the case of Bulgaria, Macedonian and Thracian Jews were murdered). 75% of French Jews survived the war because the French largely protected French Jews (though stateless Jewish refugees living in France fared much worse).

ufmace 8y ago
Yes, I have read that, and find it... I'm not sure of the best word, maybe daunting? From what I've read, the Wannsee conference was convened with the expectation that they would have to convince a bunch of middle-management bureaucrat types that switching to organized mass-murder was necessary. Apparently, much to their surprise, everyone agreed right away, and immediately started coming up with their own ideas to make it run more smoothly and efficiently. Apparently, nobody at all raised any objections or even dragged their feet at the idea of organizing mass murder.