| THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE |
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| Ideology and
Ethos |
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Very important to doubling was a Nazi doctor’s
previous idea structure, his ideology and ethos. Even ideological fragments
— which were all many doctors held in the way of ideology — could
promote the process because they became part of an older, more inclusive image
structure, or ethos. “Ethos” includes ideology and is often used to
suggest the governing or central principle in a movement, but its earlier
meaning is the belief, structure, evolved over centuries, of a specific
cultural group.
Consider the more or less typical Nazi doctor who
sought from the movement a form of national renewal; who laughed at the more
extreme claims of Nazi racial theory but was drawn to “scientific
racism” with its emphasis on German unity; who considered the Nordic race
generally superior, and feared racial mixture; who considered himself a
rational rather than a fanatical anti-Semite and was critical of the number and
prominence of Jewish doctors in German cities; who had not marched in the
streets with the Nazis but came to offer them obedience and service in exchange
for rank and a military uniform; who volunteered no great personal sacrifice on
behalf of the Nazi cause but respected those who did; and who sought maximum
professional and personal success within this newly dominant national movement.
Such a doctor, despite a seemingly restrained relationship to ideology, could
experience the mystical power of the German-Nazi ethos. He could also respond
in some degree to the call of Auschwitz.
One was asked to double in
Auschwitz on behalf of revitalization that was communal (with doctors
the racial mediators between the hero leader and the larger Aryan community)
and sacred (claiming its ultimate sanction from the dead of the First
World War). Hitler was specific about this, declaring with “icy
clarity” his doctrine of the nothingness … of the individual human
being and of his continued existence in the visible immortality “of
the nation”;16 as was Alfred Rosenberg
in his insistence that human personality is achieved only insofar as one
“is integrated, mind and soul into an organic succession of thousands of
his race"17*
Here is the powerful
lure of immortalizing racial cultural substance. In young doctors response to
that lure, enthusiasm for practical Nazi achievements merged with a sense of
mythic communal power. Communal ethos was so strong that, even when one was
deeply troubled by Nazi policies, one hesitated to oppose them because that
meant you become a traitor and stab your own people in the back. One either
adheres to the sacred community or is seen (and sees oneself) as a murderous,
cowardly traitor. |
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* Rosenberg added that
“the new German style … is the style of a marching column, no matter
where or to what end this marching column may be directed.”18 The marching column perfectly represents the
merging of individuals into an aggressively omnipotent, perfectly disciplined
community, always ready for violence and always on the move.
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