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Volume V · Page 824
| person that it is almost incapable of being recognized by any intellectual process. |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| The ethical and moral concepts of the
Christian world are largely based on the Old and New Testaments, and these are
the very standards which. according to the philosophy of the New Order, were to
be despised and cast off. It is a natural step from the adoption of such a philosophy to the incarceration into concentration camps of millions of human beings classified as "racial inferiors" and it is equally natural that these subhuman types should be wiped out after they had contributed as much as possible to the wealth and comfort of the superman. Now the very fact that such a creed is so horrifying to the ordinary person is itself enough to draw those who do believe in it together and it was inevitable that these persons, mutually attracted by a common faith in their psychopathic cult, would quickly form a feeling of spiritual kinship to each other. This is one of the sources of the SS blood brotherhood. But there are other ingredients which go to make up this feeling. A very potent one is the militaristic spirit. The Court will remember that almost every defendant eventually said that he regarded himself first and foremost as a soldier. Even the auditors and bookkeepers professed to have this conception of themselves. Vogt said of himself: |
"Since the age of 15 I was a man in the soldiers’ class." (Tr. p. 2864.) |
| We had heard before of the church militant,
but this was our first introduction to the adding machine militant. There is
always a certain amount of feeling of comradeship among members of a military
organization. This played its part in welding together the members of the SS.
It was heightened and fed by their notion that they were members of an
elite, exclusive organization, an idea which was systematically imparted
to them by every method known to modern propaganda. The men of the SS were
expected to be more than mere converts: they were to be the living embodiment
of these ideals, and were to carry the gospel to the uninitiate. This propaganda was so effective that the members of the SS even today believe, as Obergruppenfuehrer Karl Wolff testified here in this Court, that they were the purest and finest that Germany has produced. He evidently saw nothing incongruous in making that statement and admitting at the same time that the |
