| The Auschwitz Self: Psychological
Themes |
| |
| for continuously warding off anxiety and, above all,
responsibility. The equilibrium tended to be unsteady in the Auschwitz self, as
in the case of the shaman for whom “no amount of power … seems to be
enough” and who lives constantly in “the sense of his relative
impotence in the spirit-world.”50 |
| |
| |
| “Helpless” Omnipotence |
| |
This powerlessness associated with omnipotence was in fact
cultivated throughout the Nazi movement. Dr. Otto F. epitomized it, declaring
that for a student it was “a matter of course” to undergo military
training with weapons; as a doctor one underwent Gleichschaltung because
“you had to,” and you had to perform sterilizations also “as it
was simply ordered by the university which received its order from the state
health offices;” and in Auschwitz “you’re just there on the spot
and helpless” (although he was actually chief camp doctor, at least
briefly). Doctors received commands from the camp commander, Dr. F. explained,
but even the latter was trapped by a kind of blackmail held over him by the
Nazi regime so that “he suffered badly.” Similarly, about sending
Einsatzgruppen personnel back to duty after successfully treating them,
one former Nazi doctor told me that “it was a horrible thing but we
couldn't do anything [else].” And concerning cooperation with direct
medical killing, or “euthanasia,” another doctor remembered thinking,
“Well what can be done? First of all we are powerless, we can’t
change this situation.”
But in all those situations, however Nazi
doctors felt and wanted to feel powerless, they were also in a stance of
omnipotence. Indeed, the entire Führer principle rendered one
simultaneously a helpless tool (because only the Führer decided all
things) and one who shared in the Führer’s omnipotence, by serving as
the agent (or tool) of the Führer. Since the Führer’s will was
the court of last resort, it was for everyone else a system of
nonresponsibility. And, indeed, even the Führer could be painted a
“helpless”: because the Jew’s evil forced the Führer to act
or make war on him; or because psychologically the Führer’s sense of
helplessness was “projected onto the Jews” along with “the fear
of contamination, of impotence … [and] the destruction of the male’s
chief source of identity and power that was being culturally eroded … by
the modern mass work … most particularly and painfully in Germany where a
long patriarchal tradition was crumbling traumatically away.”51 |
| |
| |
| Killers as Doctors:
Professional Identity |
| |
| It is ironic, but psychologically not surprising, that
these men struggled in the midst of their killing function, to hold on to their
sense of themselves as doctors. All the more so since, as Dr. B. told us,
“medical activity |
|
