How could the Nazis have been so evil?

amother

Slateblue

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 12:16 am

How could the Nazis have all been so evil as to commit such evil acts against so many innocent people? How did they have the heart to do such terrible things? Also how did Hilter manage to brainwash so many people?

amother

Azure

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 4:27 am

I wouldn't be able to read that book. I wouldn't be able to stomach it. I did read the reviews.

In psychology, there is a whole theory how people "follow orders" and don't take individual responsibility. It's complicated. Put in here a mix of anti-Semitism.

Try understanding evil. Horrible.

chayamiriam

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 7:50 am

I think when you convince people that a certain type of people are like rats, subhuman and your doing the world a service by getting rid of the vermin, its not so hard to kill them and not think twice. That's what the Germans did. The general population of Eastern Europe was already very anti Semitic before Hitler came into power, so convincing them of the final solution was not very hard. It was mostly welcomed as a solution to a problem!!

mommy3b2c

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 7:53 am

chayamiriam wrote:

This explanation never makes sense to me. Would you enjoy torturing and killing rats?

chayamiriam

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 8:42 am

No but if your were convinced that rats caused evil, diseases you would want the world to get rid of rats, and some people of that nature would torture rats while there at it!!! I think the people were ready to except that Jews should be killed and others just took it one step further!

leah233

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 9:07 am

The Nazis were unique evil doers because they were mostly an intelligent educated group who went on after the war to live quiet lives as upper middle class citizens. Therefore their behavior is even harder to understand. The psychological studies of getting people to commit something evil under command of authority aren't really analogous because (1)The Nazis had time to think things over (2)The Nazis weren't nearly as micromanaged as the people in those studies (3) Many of the people in those studies showed signs of distress and reluctance at what they were doing. The Nazis didn't. Etc.

I would say similar to what chayamiriam is saying with something I always have in the back of my mind to make a post about: When people are convinced they are out to save the world and since they acting for the greater good the ends justify the means, there are no limits to the amount of evil the Yetzer Hora can convince them to do.

amother

Apricot

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 9:12 am

A wealthy businessman (I think it was PT Barnum but don't remember) once remarked that we can never underestimate how stupid people can be; I do think the same can be said of evil. I also was reminded of a line in a movie I recently watched: "They're in alien terrain surrounded by millions of the most vicious creatures on the planet: humans". Indeed, we humans are amazing in what we can achieve; unfotunately, those breathtaking achievments are sometimes breathtakingly horrific.

sneakermom

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 9:13 am

The Germans were brainwashed by Hitler. He infiltrated their minds through radio programs, youth groups, marches and rallies. This caught on like wild fire. Almost like a cult. And any dissenting voice was punished with death.

Hitler also euthanized German down syndrome children. He sterilized any German who was deemed to have the slightest mental illness. And he kidnapped thousands of Aryan blond children from all over Europe to be raised in German kinder homes and Germanized.

His sociopathic nature drew other sociopaths out of the woodwork. Suddenly the most crazy people were given titles, and high positions.

The world went mad.

Obviously because that's what Hashem orchestrated carefully, using Hitler as his puppet. We don't understand why. But clearly when mishloach comes God will have to answer for what happened.

I am personally amazed by my grandparents who stayed frum through it all and went on to rebuild families. It's beyond comprehension.

leah233

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 9:31 am

sneakermom wrote:

The question is how it caught like wildfire. To brainwash people they have to be receptive.
Prior to Hitler taking over there were plenty of rival political parties in Germany also trying to convince people to join their cause. Why was Nazism the one that caught on? Even after Hitler took over there was no free press but the Nazis did not prevent people from talking privately against them. Nor did they ever force anyone to join them. And if someone wanted to leave the SS they didn't give him a hard time. The SS women were all volunteers.

amother

Brown

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 9:52 am

amother wrote:

It didn't start out with Hitler and the Nazis killing Jews or anyone else. Hitler was actually sent to prison after a failed uprising attempt against the govt and it was there that he wrote the book Mein Kampf. He said that Jews were to blame for the problems in Germany and that they had too much privilege which gave them too much power over the Germans. Hitler believed that the "Jewish Privilege" needed to be lessened or removed altogether so that the Germans can have what is rightfully theirs. It is a complex history that needs to be studied because it seems like history is repeating itself, this time in America and with what is being called "white privilege" and the attempts to remove this "white privilege" from American society. Its scary because Jews are now considered to be white and I am concerned that if liberals get their way then we could end up in the same place as the Jews in Germany/Europe did once their so called "Jew Privileges" were removed.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar.....itler

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar.....iting

sneakermom

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 11:12 am

leah233 wrote:

Because he knew how to speak to the people. He knew their fears, their anger, their pitfalls. He gave them an explanation (scapegoat) for their suffering. He made them feel supremely important and secure as part of this higher race and movement.

Any master manipulator knows how to do this. I believe it was Hashem's plan that he was that successful. And nobody stopped him.

zaq

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 12:50 pm

I would never in a million years answer that question. When you explain something, you make it reasonable. I don't buy "I don't condone it but I understand it." Understanding is the first step to condoning. Some things you don't touch.

perquacky

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 1:39 pm

Read this and then share it with your kids. (Maybe you saw the after school special on TV many years ago.)
https://www.amazon.com/Wave-La.....+wave

It's based on a true story about a teacher who uses a classroom experiment to explain to his students how people could have participated in such atrocities.

leah233

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 1:55 pm

perquacky wrote:

As above I don't get these analogies to the Nazis. In The Wave experiment all he got his students to do was join a disciplined and snobby movement. He didn't (1)get them to actually do anything evil (2)his students had no real reason not to join him.(3)they weren't being told to do anything they had grown up believing to be wrong etc.

perquacky

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 2:07 pm

leah233 wrote:

The Nazis didn't start off killing Jews right away. They first joined the party--and they developed a sense of belonging. For many, it was a gradual change from one extreme to another.

dancingqueen

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 2:45 pm

I think a lot of frum people don't realize that there are unfortunately many genocides going on around the world to this very day. The Nazis were not a lone group to commit atrocities against another group. Other examples today: Syria, ISIS, the Congo in Africa etc. The older I get the more I realize how great the capacity for evil seems to be in mankind. It's really scary.

Germany post WWI was in an economic depression, the country defeated, people unhappy, morale low. The perfect storm for finding a scapegoat for the country's problems. Stir in deep seated European anti-Semitism. And remember the SS was separate from many Nazis who were regular soldiers. Not all Nazis/Germans of the time were actively killing Jews. And yes, Hitler was a sociopath. As was Stalin and many other people who come to absolute power.

leah233

Tue, Apr 25 2017, 2:50 pm

perquacky wrote:

The Nazis didn't start off killing Jews right away. They first joined the party--and they developed a sense of belonging. For many, it was a gradual change from one extreme to another.

You are going with the assumption that once you get people to go join a movement you can gradually get them to do anything. I don't see the evidence for that assumption.

Also it's also a lot easier to start some snobby teenage group than a real societal movement. And it is a lot easier to get teenagers to act like snobs than to get intelligent educated adults to do something obviously evil when membership in the social movement they belong to doesn't require it.