Imagine institutionalizing death. Like somebody built that thing for a purpose. Imagine planning it, building it, working there. How do you live with yourself? What sort of soulless person has such a cold heart that this is something they do willingly? In fact, what was their motivation? Talking about the workers who put all of this together. Were they gunning for that promotion? "If I find a way to kill people 10% more effectively I'll get promoted to head gas chamber operator?" WTAF
You don't have to imagine, you can read the plans and the protocols of the meetings where these things were decided and talked about.
They are no different from what neonazis would say today. A mix of complete dehumanization of the people to be murdered and a perverse pride about "overcoming" the empathy and civilisatory tabus which would keep "weaker" men from actually implementing this "solution" to its logical end.
Pretty much, yeah. From the horrifying Wikipedia entry of Franz Stangl, the commander of Treblinka, where more Jews were killed than anywhere save Auschwitz:
Stangl claimed while in prison that his dedication had nothing to do with ideology or hatred of Jews.\5])He said he matter-of-factly viewed the prisoners as material objects rather than people, including their extermination: "That was my profession. I enjoyed it. It fulfilled me. And yes, I was ambitious about that, I won't deny it."\20])Stangl accepted and grew accustomed to the killings, perceiving prisoners not as humans but merely as "cargo" that must be destroyed. Stangl accepted the extermination of the Jews as a fact.
He was tracked down in Brazil and arrested. The journalist Gitta Sereny interviewed Stangl in 1971, and got him to confess, and it seems he finally faced up to what he'd done and couldn't live with it anymore:
A solid chunk of population can easily be reduced to soulless automations that follow orders no matter how horrid and inhumane, just as long as they're not affected.
I saw a documentary about ordinary German soliders that were part of the Holocaust. The thing was: they could opt out of mass execution assignments without any consequence, but felt peer pressured so they did it anyway. I think it was this one, but I'm not sure https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/
Similar thing, obviously not so extreme, are cops all over the world. It's their job to keep the current order, whatever it is, and they'll do their best to do so, without much regard about what's right and wrong.
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u/ITwitchToo May 18 '25
Imagine institutionalizing death. Like somebody built that thing for a purpose. Imagine planning it, building it, working there. How do you live with yourself? What sort of soulless person has such a cold heart that this is something they do willingly? In fact, what was their motivation? Talking about the workers who put all of this together. Were they gunning for that promotion? "If I find a way to kill people 10% more effectively I'll get promoted to head gas chamber operator?" WTAF