Mental Issues

[Roberto]

Yes, I never cease to be amazed at the notion that those scary Nazis wet their pants at the sight of blood!

Their critics seem to want to simultaneously argue that the Nazis were bloodthirsty killers but at the same time cowards.

The issue is not that the Einsatzgruppen killers “wet their pants at the sight of blood”. It is that, as Benjamin Fanjoy pointed out, they killed men, women and children by the thousands in 8 hour shifts, and that not once or twice, but day after day, week after week. Constant wading in blood and brain matter and daily exposure to the wailing and screaming of women and children eventually sapped the mental balance of the killers, causing some to go insane and/or commit suicide and others to become killing automatons devoid of any human feelings. Beside the close contact with their victims (it was not like throwing bombs on them from ten thousand feet above) and the constant repetition of the gruesome massacres, the fact that they killed largely if not mostly women and children (unlike e.g. the NKVD’s executors, whose victims were mostly adult males) was also a factor encouraging emotional breakdowns in even the most hardened of killers. Unlike most other mass killers, on the other hand, they also had a commander who cared for their psychological problems.

The fact is that WAR is mass-murder. Millions can be killed by bombs and millions by bayonets and it is not so hard to find soldiers who will do either. Even if the enemy was men, women and children it would have required only a little more political reliability from certain soldiers, that's all. Kill-or-get-killed smoothly becomes kill-the-enemy.

Another of Smith’s feeble attempts to establish moral equivalencies in order to whitewash his beloved Nazi regime. If he sees no difference between however barbaric acts of war aimed at forcing the surrender of a military enemy on the one hand and the wholesale slaughter of unarmed non-combatants aimed at nothing other than getting rid of them on the other, that’s his problem. Criminal justice and historiography see a difference between one and the other.

[Benoit Douville]

Roberto,

You mention about the Einsatzgruppen that some of them commited suicide. I believe so. I am wondering if it was on a large scale? Do you have some statistics?

Regards

[Scott Smith]

Roberto,

You mention about the Einsatzgruppen that some of them commited suicide. I believe so. I am wondering if it was on a large scale? Do you have some statistics?

Ordinary soldiers sometimes commit suicide too. That doesn't make them baby killers, assuming that such even fired a shot, which isn't always the case. Military life is very stressful.

[Scott Smith]

Scott wrote:

Over 65% of aircrew were lost...

You know I have seen some remarkable figures on aircrew losses, and so far the highest I have yet found was 47.9% for Bomber Command, and that one is not even adequately sourced.

You have a URL or reference for your figures that I could look at?

That's a reasonable request. If I can find a source I'll let you know, but I didn't make it up. Of course, my memory has been known to be wrong, but I don't think so in this case. At one time I used to take copious notes of things that I'm reading but I'm too lazy anymore.

[Scott Smith]

Hi Mark,

My point on the 65% losses on aircrew was about the chance of NOT surviving a Tour of Duty (initially 25 missions). The 75% figure on U-boat crew losses, cited often and probably familiar, comes simply from the ratio of those who ever crewed a U-boat and those who were KIA/MIA.

So the American aircrew loss figures that I cited may not be a good comparison because the methodology might not be the same. I found some data on U.S. Army Air Force losses in WWII and they were about 3%, but this is as an organization and not just bomber aircrews, nor exclusive to the European theater.

From my notes on John Keegan--I can get a citation or direct quote the next time I visit a library--I have some figures on RAF Bomber Command, which is an occupation usually acknowledged to have been safer than the American daylight bombings.

The RAF Tour of Duty was 30 missions. Each flyer had the statistical probability of being shot-down before the Tour was completed, which weighed on morale. (That would mean an over 50% chance, I believe.) In 1941, more aircrew were killed than civilians in the raids!

Bomber Harris determined that losses for each mission of up to 5% were acceptable. At Nuremberg on the night of 30 March 1944, the losses were 11%. Morale could not have been lower, but seasoned crews with more than five missions had better odds than novices. With 10% attrition-rates common, crews often bombed short and returned home to base prematurely.

I think that makes my point, although it is not the USAAF figure of 65% Tour-nonsurvival that I used above. I don't recall exactly where I read that but I found it astonishing.

Statistically, if the odds for each mission are 10% then that doesn't mean that you have a 50% chance of being shot-down from five missions. You still have a ten-percent chance each mission. But the overall odds for completing the Tour are bad with even a five-percent chance of getting-it for each of your 30 missions. According to Keegan, it was even-odds or worse for completing a tour with Bomber Command.

Best Regards,
Scott

[Roberto]

Roberto,

You mention about the Einsatzgruppen that some of them commited suicide. I believe so. I am wondering if it was on a large scale? Do you have some statistics?

Regards

There are no statistics that I know of. But the psychological effect of the mass executions on those who had to carry them out is documented by various statements from Nazi officials:

As the firing started, Himmler became more and more nervous. At each volley, he looked down at the ground .... The other witness was Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach-Zelewski...Von dem Bach addressed Himmler: "Reichsfuehrer, those were only a hundred....Look at the eyes of the men in this commando, how deeply shaken they are. Those men are finished ["fertig"] for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages."

Source of quote:

Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, 1987 Indiana University Press, page 8.

Whether at that time I had doubts against the use of gas vans I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the man who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans.

From my translation of the deposition of former SS Obersturmfuehrer Walter Rauff before the German Embassy in Santiago de Chile on 28 June 1972.

Source of quote:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/r/ ... ranslation

COL. POKROVSKY: You said that mostly women and children were executed in these vans. For what reason?

OHLENDORF: That was a special order from Himmler to the effect that women and children were not to be exposed to the mental strain of the executions; and thus the men of the Kommandos, mostly married men, should not be compelled to aim at women and children.

From the deposition of Otto Ohlendorf at the Nuremberg Trial

Source of quote:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/p ... #ohlendorf

Cases of mental breakdown and suicide are mentioned i.a. by Rudolf Höß in his autobiography. I don’t have it with me right now, but I’ll transcribe the respective text tomorrow.

[viriato]

Scott Smith wrote:

Statistically, if the odds for each mission are 10% then that doesn't mean that you have a 50% chance of being shot-down from five missions. You still have a ten-percent chance each mission. But the overall odds for completing the Tour are bad with even a five-percent chance of getting-it for each of your 30 missions.

After five successive missions with a probability of 10% of not returning in each one you have:

10%+9%+8.1%+7.29%+6.561%=40.951% probability of not having return.

[Ovidius]

After five successive missions with a probability of 10% of not returning in each one you have:

10%+9%+8.1%+7.29%+6.561%=40.951% probability of not having return.

Which is even worse than the odds of an U-Boat sailor, because he sailor had 75% odds to not survive throughout the war(5 years), while the airman had 40.951% odds to not survive throughout 5 missions(each of them less than a day long)

The Germans were, as we see, not quite helpless in front of the bombings.

I wonder how many statues did they built to Hartmann or Marseille

~Ovidius

[Benjamin Fanjoy]

Where are you getting these %'s????

[Roberto]

Roberto,

You mention about the Einsatzgruppen that some of them commited suicide. I believe so. I am wondering if it was on a large scale? Do you have some statistics?

Regards

There are no statistics that I know of. But the psychological effect of the mass executions on those who had to carry them out is documented by various statements from Nazi officials:

As the firing started, Himmler became more and more nervous. At each volley, he looked down at the ground .... The other witness was Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach-Zelewski...Von dem Bach addressed Himmler: "Reichsfuehrer, those were only a hundred....Look at the eyes of the men in this commando, how deeply shaken they are. Those men are finished ["fertig"] for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages."

Source of quote:

Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, 1987 Indiana University Press, page 8.

Whether at that time I had doubts against the use of gas vans I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the man who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans.

From my translation of the deposition of former SS Obersturmfuehrer Walter Rauff before the German Embassy in Santiago de Chile on 28 June 1972.

Source of quote:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/r/ ... ranslation

COL. POKROVSKY: You said that mostly women and children were executed in these vans. For what reason?

OHLENDORF: That was a special order from Himmler to the effect that women and children were not to be exposed to the mental strain of the executions; and thus the men of the Kommandos, mostly married men, should not be compelled to aim at women and children.

From the deposition of Otto Ohlendorf at the Nuremberg Trial

Source of quote:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/p ... #ohlendorf

Cases of mental breakdown and suicide are mentioned i.a. by Rudolf Höß in his autobiography. I don’t have it with me right now, but I’ll transcribe the respective text tomorrow.

This is what Rudolf Höß wrote in his autobiography (Phoenix Press edition, translated from the German text published in 1958 by Constantine FitzGibbon, page 147):

The killing of Russian prisoners-of-war did not cause me much concern at the time. The order had been given, and I had to carry it out. I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest, for the mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon and at that time neither Eichmann nor I was certain how these mass killings were to be carried out. It would be by gas, but we did not know which gas or how it was to be used. Now we had the gas, and we had established a procedure. I always shuddered at the prospect of carrying out exterminations by shooting, when I thought of the vast numbers concerned, and of the women and children. The shooting of hostages, and the group executions ordered by the Reichsführer SS or by the Reich Security Head Office had been enough for me. I was therefore relieved to think that we were to be spared all these blood baths, and that the victims too would be spared suffering until their last moment came. It was precisely this which had caused me the greatest concern when I had heard Eichmann’s description of Jews being mown down by the Special Squads armed with machine-guns and machine pistols. Many gruesome scenes are said to have taken place, people running away after being shot, the finishing off of the wounded and particularly of the women and children. Many members of the Einsatzkommandos, unable to endure wading through blood any longer, had committed suicide. Some had even gone mad. Most of the members of these Kommandos had to rely on alcohol when carrying out their horrible work. According to Höfle’s description, the men employed at Globocnik’s extermination centers consumed amazing quantities of alcohol.

[viriato]

Benjamin Fanjoy asked:

Where are you getting these %'s????

The first % is the probability of having not survived during the first mission, the second % the same for the second mission in the assumption of having survived the first misson, the third % the same for the third mission assuming survival after both the first and the second missions,
etc.

How to calculate it? Simple. The first one is already given - 10%. The second one would be 10% of the remaining (in this case 90%) that is 10%*(100%-10%)=9%. The third would be the 10% of the remaining - 10%*(100%-10%-9%)=8.1%. The fourth would be 10%*(100%-10%-9%-8.1%) and so forth.

I hope you have understood it...