were folks like hitler, goering, himmler etc actually evil or just arrogant?
Did the high ranking nazis actually ever physically kill a human with their own hands, or were they only involved in writing the solution policies?
when they signed off the documents to go ahead and kill millions of jews, gypsies etc they were signing it on paper, but did they have a grasp on the concepts that they were implementing... did they physically see the people they were killing or was it all just numbers on a page to them?
which is more evil, the person who orders the death, or the person working the oven?
Surely the german soldiers working at the camps, regular men I suppose, on the "cutting room floor" as it were, were able to distinguish that killing thousands of prisoners per day was somehow wrong. When we look back now it is all considered ghastly... but didn't one of those officers working the camps turn to his colleague and say, "hey fritz, what the fuck are we actually doing to these people?"
were high ranking nazis *actually* evil?
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Oberst Klink
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I don't know about Hitler and Goering but Himmler witnessed the Einsatzgruppen executions.He watched the execution of two hundred Jews..did they physically see the people they were killing or was it all just numbers on a page to them?
at Minsk after which he became ill to the point of collapse.
Was he evil ?
Heinrich Himmler
September 1941.Even the child in the cradle must be trampled down like a poisonous toad...We are living in an epoch of iron,during which it is necessary to sweep with iron brooms.
I'm not sure if he became ill, but he obviously didn't like what he saw:witness wrote:I don't know about Hitler and Goering but Himmler witnessed the Einsatzgruppen executions.He watched the execution of two hundred Jews..did they physically see the people they were killing or was it all just numbers on a page to them?
at Minsk after which he became ill to the point of collapse.
Was he evil ?
Source of quote: Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, student edition, 1985 Holmes & Meier, pages 136/137Once, in mid-August 1941, Himmler himself visited Minsk. He asked Einsatzgruppe B Commander Nebe to shoot a batch of a hundred people, so that he could see what one of these “liquidations” really looked like. Nebe obliged. All except two of the victims were men. Himmler spotted in the group a youth of about twenty who had blue eyes and blond hair. Just before the firing was to begin, Himmler walked up to the doomed man and put a few questions to him:
Are you a Jew?
Yes.
Are both of your parents Jews?
Yes.
Do you have any ancestors who are not Jews?
No.
Then I can’t help you!
As the firing started, Himmler was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to the ground. When the two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them.
When the shooting was over, Himmler and a fellow spectator engaged in a conversation. The other witness was Obergruppenführer von dem Bach-Zelewski, the same man who was later delivered to a hospital. Von dem Bach addressed Himmler:
Reichsführer, those were only a hundred.
What do you mean by that?
Look at the eyes of the men in this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are! These men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!
Himmler was visibly moved and decided to make a speech to all who were assembled there. He pointed out that the Einsatzgruppen were called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. He would not like it if Germans did such a thing gladly. But their conscience was in no way impaired, for they were soldiers who had to carry out every order unconditionally. He alone had responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that was happening. They had undoubtedly noticed that he hated this bloody business and that he had been aroused to the depth of his soul. But he too was obeying the highest law by doing his duty, and he was acting from a deep understanding of the necessity for this operation.
Himmler told the men to look at nature. There was combat everywhere, not only among men but also in the world of animals and plants. Whoever was too tired to fight must go under. The most primitive man says that the horse is good and the bedbug is bad, or wheat is good and the thistle is bad. The human being consequently designates what is useful to him as good and what is harmful as bad. Didn’t bedbugs and rats have a life purpose also? Yes, but this had never meant that man could not defend himself against vermin.
Interesting quote. Where did you find it?witness wrote:Heinrich HimmlerSeptember 1941.Even the child in the cradle must be trampled down like a poisonous toad...We are living in an epoch of iron,during which it is necessary to sweep with iron brooms.
Last edited by Roberto on 24 Oct 2002, 18:35, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Reply.
No exception for those bastards who destroyed your beloved Führer ?member7 wrote:There is no such thing as good and evil.
Reply to Roberto.
They were worse then evil. They were monsters from hell.No exception for those bastards who destroyed your beloved Führer ?
Re: Reply to Roberto.
Thanks. That's what I wanted to hear.member7 wrote:They were worse then evil. They were monsters from hell.No exception for those bastards who destroyed your beloved Führer ?
