German History Max P.

Quayle

5 Inquiries into the Holocaust

1. What factors in Jewish history made this minority particularly susceptible to persecution
in Europe and Germany?

Throughout all recorded history since Father Abraham laid claim to the land called Canaan,

Israelites, Jews, Semites, and Hebrews have been persecuted, conquered, enslaved and displaced.

It is a tribute to both their physical attributes, and their obdurate, indefatigable wills that they still

exist at all. There is within the holistic Jew - be it the mind, character or constitution of blood -

something of a tendency toward acceptance when they deem that the time has come for them to

suffer. I do not declare them masochistic, nor are they unable to resist. They are simply able to

gauge, very accurately when a time has come to submit to a force, or foe arrayed against them.

In Jerusalem, the righteousness of their King was perhaps the metric, and as David and

Solomon fell, so too did that great city not long after. In Egypt, Pharaoh decreed the time of

suffering, and all but once they bore it. Finally, in modern history, an exodus has occurred in small

or large cases at least every century: Previous to the force of Holocaust, Russian Jews were rudely

displaced in the latter 19th century. Before that, European history is full of anti-Semitic laws,

controls and violence.

To say that these events have contributed to an evolutionary readiness for persecution and

suffering alone would be a stretch. Factor in the oral tradition and written histories which are

shared and reviewed in a systematic way among families and close knit groups in solidarity, and I

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propose a strong case that the experiences of the Jewish nation, as long as someone lived to tell the

tale, have had a decisive and abiding influence on their modern composition.

To the European Jews, tightly held tradition kept history alive in their outlook and was

certainly influential in decision making. Many expelled Russian Jews carried tales and experiences

of bitter persecution on their westward journey to Europe. Once resettled in Germany, Poland and

other regions around, I suggest they were actually quite unsettled and, unsure as to their future.

This is a feeling prerequisite to Judaism.

Another aspect of the Jewish people is their hardy willingness to make the best of their

current situation, however bleak. Looking to the very nature of their historical emigrations, it is

safe to say that they were willing to reap when the wheat was high, and sow on any land from

which they could cull. By their thrifty and fiscally prudent nature, any civilization in the 20th

century came replete with the perfect niche for an intelligent, hardworking Jew.

Having thus immersed them selves into the economies and cultures of the German

provinces and surrounding countries, they found a relative comfort and had, in large measure,

begun to succeed. Thus, the cycle of success, persecution and subsequent displacement surely

became apparent within the close knit groups of European Jews.

Therefore, I suggest that susceptibility in Germany and Europe was not especially

particular: When a non-warlike and systematically maltreated people are true to their heritage,

they surely live in anxious expectation of the next disruption, dislocation or, in the case of the 20th

century, mass evacuation. Their very existence of the modern Jew is one of patented, possibly

relegated, susceptibility.

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2. True or false: Peculiarities in German nationalism and unification are, at least in part, to
blame for the Holocaust.

Unique traits cultivated and nourished in the peoples of post Prussian Germany included a

profound respect for authority, a palpable confidence in the expertise of their work force and a

refined, indulgent love of good beer. To set these forth as partial causes of the most brutal and

offensive annihilation of a people ever known would be similar to suggesting that the oddly

surreal phrase “Manifest Destiny” accurately reflects the attitude of early American Patriots

toward the Native Inhabitants of this American continent. Ergo, absolutely.

It is the very peculiarities in groups of people that have often been exaggerated to foment

war and human cruelty one to one another throughout history. Specifically, the German

peculiarities and personal honor in connection with nationalistic pride, truly prepared the German

mind for acceptance of atrocity. Not in the civilian ranks as thoroughly as within the military,

police and civil/political autocracy; but prevalent nonetheless. A careful study of this process of

nationalistic hubris can be gleaned from the dueling essays: Ordinary Men, by C. R. Browning,

and Hitler’s Willing Executioners by D. J. Goldhagen1. In these treatises I have found two views

of the different necessary components of the same process: The mental functions that need to be

executed, and coping with the severe stresses inherent to them, lay bare the intimate and personal

degradative journey from civil peace officer to cold, efficient killer.

A similar, as fascinating exposé could be drawn, contrasting the waysa children in a

schoolyard react to a fight among their peers, versus the accepted rules they might be able to

quote, concerning proper behavior necessary to avoid such brawls. The ring still forms, the chant
1
Niewyck, D.L. The Holocaust, pp. 76-103; Houghton Mifflin, New York: 2003
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of “Fight, fight!” still echoes, and the very behaviors that will surely lead to a rapid de-escalation

(by virtue of attention drawing) of the strangely exciting scene are employed knee jerk by your

children and mine.

I have tried to establish a ‘partial’ responsibility for the Holocaust as it applies to the

essential German political Nationalist. What is left to show is the extent to which this somewhat

‘blind faith’ in policies, contributed to the acts of violence: Culture develops around people who

are pursuing survival, and are refining preferences in both the mundane and exciting conditions of

normal life. For example, any time an authority suggests to me to do a certain thing for the

betterment of my city; I perform lightening fast calculations to determine what the impact will be

on me, personally. Then, I consider what the greater good may be. If I am convinced that the

requestor is competent in his field, and honorable in his ways I don’t usually require a step by step

justification of the proposal – I can at that point simply support or dismiss; all this before even

talking with family or friends and neighbors. Imagine the German propaganda machine at its

height, having already made its fundamental case to the vast majority of the citizen of the Reich. It

would take a pretty shocking rebuttal of wide acceptability to reverse so many carefully prepared

minds.

Excepting the word ‘blame’, and affixing ‘responsible’, or ‘answerable’ might help to

personalize the extent of this national characteristics’ involvement.

3. Karl Schleunes has described the path leading to the Holocaust as “Twisted.” What does
he mean by this?
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I take his nomenclature to be particularly apt as a description of the nonchalance

surrounding the numbing, desensitization that each individual human being had to pass through

who was associated in any way with the inhuman treatment of prisoners, and evacuees. No sane

individual can make the journey from coexistence and toleration to complete rejection and

ferocious hate with out setting foot on a number of distinct and separate paths.

Anti-Semitism alone will not be responsible. Jealousy and envy cannot foment with

completeness. Sub human categorization cannot suddenly replace relative equality, or tolerance.

Abandonment of human decency is not a rapid, easy shift. Each of these paths requires some

passage, and time, before the ultimate goal is reached. Incident to the Holocaust were many

simultaneous reductions in the way the Jew was portrayed, publicly described, and even privately

handled, which served to remediate feelings of doubt.

A hike into a deep canyon, by necessity, requires many twists and turns; so also, does the

descent into genocide. If the party were to simply race toward the bottom, the result would be

disaster, and failure. But as the group carefully picks the paths that seem to lead down steadily,

some very perilous sections can be either wittily navigated through or skipped altogether; the

travelers opting instead for another way. Critical also, to the holocaust, was the possibility and

application of having some go down one path and others travel on another, thereby systematically

avoiding the requirement that all participants experience all degrees of the descent. In lieu of the

horrors of this massacre, a metaphor may not serve the memory of the deceased appropriately;

however, there is something to be said for the path of least resistance: The trail that gets there the

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easiest is rarely the hardest or the straightest – It is twisted, convoluted and in this case, intimately

corrupted.

‘Twisted’, as a descriptive article, is full of potential clarification as it applies to the road to

systematic murder and the burning of all evidence. The human mind cannot process the whole

Holocaust; it must be taken in little by little, a portion at a time. Such too, is the mental trip that

accompanied the perpetrators of this madness: Logic, reason, and human sensibilities all needed to

be skewed, bent and inverted – a process which would be unique to each participant, and could not

be categorically simplified for all – and this would take some time.

A contrasting metaphor can compare each individual’s personal and unique excursion into

the acceptance of Buddhism, Mormonism, or Pacifism to the journey taken by those mentioned

above: Though vastly differing objectives are therein sought, the course of each man or woman is

perfectly personal and rests its appeal in a broad range of myriad attractions. Comparatively, as a

‘sudden’ Christian might arouse skepticism among the faithful, so too might an instantly

bloodthirsty Nazi; each extreme would be observed for a time before being welcomed into the

throng, and believed.

Like the piles of distorted and mangled corpses that greeted the Russian forces as they

liberated Poland, so too must a twisted and demented heap of lacerated and bleeding thoughts

accompany a journey within a healthy, compassionate mind through the wrench-ing debasement

and inhuman processes necessary to ally itself with a force purposed to eradicate an entire race.

4. When did the “Holocaust” proper begin?

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“Holocaust: that which is offered up; it signifies a burnt offering offered whole unto the

Lord.”2 Rather than hold to this definition, I refer to it only to divide the Jewish case from other

inhuman massacres, including the Turkish-Armenian massacre to which this definitions’ sources

point as an etymological root. Burning, as a component is key, but, the whole idea of an offering

prepared for and offered whole to the Lord would serve to sanctify the killings as ritual, when they

were, in the case of Nazi Germany, depraved and devoid of any consistent religious context.

In the course of the Second World War, the stage of battle might be compared to an

amphitheater which is so large, that its opposing ends lie far enough beyond the horizon of the

earth’s sphere, that all components and players on the field cannot possibly be viewed from one

perspective, simultaneously. For the purpose of scope I will not propose a date or an act as the

beginning of the Holocaust, but will portray events which are indicative of myriad Holocausts

along the entire breadth of the era.

Any where, and every where in the theater of WWII, when any human was placed into

bondage, deprived of self defense and murdered by any means, and then as an act of desecration,

or simply for purpose of hiding evidence, their remains were burned; this person I identify as a

victim of the Holocaust. The necessity of burning cannot be corralled with all other methods of

disposal, because of the simple fact that at the end of the process, there is no evidence strong

enough to convict the perpetrator. The atrocities of the Holocaust are specifically those crimes

committed for which no physical evidence remains to launch a charge or to try an alleged

murderer. The secret cowardice of this erasure of the existence of human beings sets the tone of
2
Petrie, J. Etymology of the word Holocaust (www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/Holocaust) accessed 3/19/08
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the Holocausts’ horror. Buried corpses can be unearthed, identified or at least interred again, with

dignity; scattered ashes cannot.

Man has no right to destroy utterly that which he did not, nor can create. And had women

participated in the executions I might have to rethink this condition, but as it stands, the closest

Nazi women got to the ovens were these three: herta bothe, ilse koch, irma grese3, not intending to

be trite, I will not dignify these three names with common capitalization. They are the exceptions

to my masculine definition and though the mutated minds that drove their actions were likely

lunatic, I would that they might reside in everlasting ignominy.

The massive, highly efficient ovens which ended up burning the Jews and others stand at

the center of my argument, with isolated arsons, pit fires and corpse scorching included as

individual, very personal Holocausts.

5. What motivated the killers in the “mobile killing squads” to kill Jews?

3
Mesna, Angela: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/naziwomen/NaziWomenMainPage.htm Date created:
December 8, 2003, modified 12/21/03, comments added 1/20/04, 4/14/04, 4/23/04
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Here is a question of pride. I am a dedicated employee, I will go to profound lengths in my

field, to see that my dedication and loyalty is above reproach. My desire in holding myself to this

standard is not for the company’s profit, but for my own outstanding profile as an individual

contributor. My pride impels me to be better than others, and I thrive on the challenges associated

with honestly besting an equal, or peer.

In the death squads, I am confident that morale was kept strong by sheer immorality. I

imagine beautiful young Jews and gypsies were summarily raped, merchants robbed, and children

unmentionably mistreated. I envision these squads as groups of mid-level SS men, periodically

bolstered with a new recruits, each basically killing time trying to out do each other within the

unit, through atrocity and degradation. Due to the incessant documentation and communication on

the front, rival units likely competed as well. Immersion in such ‘games’ might have served to

distance the cold, bare fact of what they were doing, from the emotional trauma it should normally

invite.

Let us consider the systematized and calculating German mind. I can name six categories in

which I would prefer a German brand name, or idea: Folding chairs, meat shears, cars, chocolate,

audio speakers and, of course, in historical instruction. The German mind is geared to encapsulate

the finer details. And it captures efficiency, function and precision in all that it creates. Perhaps the

tendency to follow authority near blindly, and to submit unilaterally to nationalist agendas, serves

to free up the human mind to apply itself more diligently in the spheres where it can make a

difference.

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In America, we are taught: “One shot was heard around the world, one vote counts, one man

can make the difference.” Perhaps the German creature is of another sort, perhaps he is

uninterested in, even irritated by, the absence of authority dictating process and control; perhaps he

is a dangerous evolutionary genetic pool dweller who waits on the fringe of humanity for the

opportunity to be efficient and perfect and best, in the area of his expertise. I have this trait, though

I cannot imagine its application to something as obscene as stark, calculated murder. Orders,

dedication to duty, and sickening indifference provided ample motive for the Death Squads’

revolting cast of cowards.

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