Ordinary People and Extraordinary Atrocity

A look into how ordinary people can do horrible things.

The phenomenon of Nazi Germany has been studied repeatedly ever since the inception and demise of the movement. These studies have been frequently framed in an “us vs them” framework that only serves to separate us from history. It might be of more worth to instead take another look at the history of Nazi Germany, specifically how it was that the average individual fell under its influence, through the lens of the perpetrator, rather than the victim. I hope to illustrate what it might have been like in Germany around the time of the Nazis and to demonstrate that if you had lived in Germany at that time, you too would have been a Nazi. Only by seeing how we have the potential to repeat the atrocities of history will we be able to adequately fortify ourselves against those same mistakes.

The Historical Context

To understand why someone might follow the likes of Adolf Hitler, it is imperative that we explore the historical context surrounding his rise. John Connor, author of From Ghost Dance to Death Camps: Nazi Germany as a Crisis of Cult, details the national state of things within Germany and how that would deeply affect the country. According to Connor, “Germany made the transition from a feudal, agrarian society to an industrialized, nationalized society in the space of a generation” (264). This caused a huge disruption in the daily lives and occupations of many Germans over an incredibly short period of time. Even though economic prosperity was on the rise, shifting the economic foundation of an entire nation that quickly left many in the country feeling off balance. The combination of an incredibly rapid industrial revolution, the humiliation of World War I, and the crippling effects of the Great Depression all created a sense of instability and fear within Germany; change occurred at a rapid rate, national pride was dealt a major blow, and “the Depression reawakened old fears” (Connor 268). The question then arises, how do people react to these kinds of circumstances? Connor explains that “when the society appears to be disintegrating, social bond dissolving, and chaos appears imminent, it is the charismatic leader with his unshakable conviction in the truth of his message that conveys to his followers the certainty they seek” (261). Hitler was this charismatic leader that promised stability in the face of the chaos that defined his day.

The Right Man for the Job

Hitler provided the stability that Germany had been desperately searching for. His charisma and absolute faith in himself were enough to inspire the same faith in the German people. Here is the thing that many modern readers of history fail to understand; in the eyes of the German people, Hitler was a legitimate savior of their way of life in the face of these terrifying circumstances. Richard Grunberger, in his book A Social History of the Third Reich explains just how appealing and relatable Hitler was to the German people, it is worth citing in full:

There was no major section of German society that could not in some way identify with him. Farmers saw him as springing from peasant stock, workers as a horny- handed son of toil endowed with unique insight into their situation, soldiers as a classless military man-part corporal, part supreme commander, and members of the professions as a self-taught man who, by-passing academic routine, had graduated summa cum laude in the school of life. And with all this he was also musich (receptive to the Muse)-for was he not a watercolorist and an architect, with a predilection for Wagner? (118)

Everyone related with Hitler during the 30’s before the war. He was a people’s man in the truest sense. With the power and influence he held; a better man would have been able to do much good. People today can only see Hitler through the lens of the Holocaust, which is entirely fair, but that was not the man who came to power in the 30’s, at least in the eyes of the German people. Connor even went so far as to claim that “if Hitler had died in 1938, few would hesitate to call him one of the greatest of German statesmen” (273). Hitler won the people so thoroughly that Roberta Pergher in her article The Ethics of Consent-Regime and people in the Histographies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany noted that “Hitler had significant electoral backing and his armies continued to fight with unabated ferocity until an unprecedented four-fifths of German territory was in enemy hands” (310). Hitler was able to expertly understand and exploit the economic and social situation within Germany to be able to propel himself to power. The people loved him and followed him even after all reason would suggest surrender. The question remains though, what was it that he said or espoused that was so compelling?

The Party

Outside the situation within Germany, the rhetoric of Nazism is important to consider when trying to understand why people turned to Nazism. The rhetoric and what the Nazi’s argued is a major reason that people turned to Nazism for the comfort and stability previously referred to. Fred Casmir in his article, Nazi Rhetoric: A Rhetoric of Fear argued “their rhetorical appeals were rooted in two value judgments which amounted to fears as old as organized society itself: the loss of identity as a distinct race and the loss of nationalistic power and prestige through foreign influences” (15). By reminding people of these two fundamental fears and presenting themselves as the solution and the protection of those values, Nazi’s were able to win over many people. Few people in reality react to hopeful messages. The human mind is much more willing to act in the face of fear. Here is also where the first hints of racism within Nazism begin to become noticeable. This affected civilians in that they then became tolerant of the brutalization of their Jewish neighbors because they fell into the enemy category. This also deeply affected the military and how they would treat their enemies. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and The Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning explores the experience of the middle-aged police officers who made up a militarized police battalion. They had not grown up under Nazi rule and therefore it can be argued that they were “ordinary men” who eventually came to commit atrocities during WWII. Browning argued that “when deeply embedded negative racial stereotypes are added to the brutalization inherent in sending armed men to kill one another on a massive scale, the fragile tissue of war conventions and rules of combat is even more frequently and viciously broken on all sides” (160). The introduction of fear tactics into Nazi rhetoric and assigning the center of that fear to be the Jews enabled many people to do horrible things to those supposed enemies, and pushed society in the direction that would eventually lead to the Holocaust.

One of the issues that Nazi leadership would run into actually stems from this propaganda. In his paper Nazi Propaganda and the Voksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community, David Welch argued that “the concept of a ‘national’ or ‘people’s’ community (Voksgemeinschaft) was a key element in the ‘revolutionary’ aims of the nazi regime, and illustrates the remarkably ambitious nature of its propaganda” (213). A major focus of Nazi propaganda was to create its own sense of community built around the party rather than any pre existing institutions. They were actually quite clever in how the implemented this alternate society. As Nazism rose they were willing to work with the churches throughout Germany to build greater institutional support, but as the movement progressed the party distanced itself from the churches and eventually cracked down on them as they did every other major institution. As the Nazis gained power, they attempted to enforce this community by gathering information on public opinion to gauge how people were reacting to the war and Nazism in general. By being the only institutional gather place, Nazis tried to keep a thumb on the pulse of the country. However, as public opinion dropped near the end of the war, Nazi leaders had inadvertently built a system that only sought to please them, and were blinded when public opinion dropped. Near the end of the war Nazi leadership still thought that Germany was on their side and that they might still be able to win. Agents throughout all levels of the party had been incentivized to only report the most positive aspects of German opinion to those above them (or invent it wholesale where any positivity was laking). This sense of optimism was built upon poorly designed incentives, and led to the death of many more people than might otherwise have occurred because they would not surrender. An unprecedented four fifths of German territory had been captured before Germany surrendered.

The People

When society is trending towards atrocity, pressure is put upon individual people to be enablers. Just as an individual drop of water is pressured to join the flood, so the individual joins the genocide. We frequently wish that people would be unmovable boulders in a river rather than a drop of the water, but even boulders are eventually worn down and join the river. Societal trends and pressures exert much more influence on the actions of people than we frequently give credit for. This is not to say that people who perpetuate genocide or participate in it are free of blame simply because of the trends of society, but it is to say that it is more complicated than might be supposed. Perhaps in the exploration of the ways in which individuals in Nazi Germany were influenced by society and other factors, specific ways to fortify ourselves may arise.

In the pursuit of understanding military atrocities specifically it is important to understand how the nature of command structures can enable atrocity. Busch details how it is that ordinary people can be brought to commit horrible acts. Regarding military command Busch argued that “it transpired that the executioners of the violence relied on the military command structure, as if committing a crime because a higher authority ordered you to is no longer a crime” (59-60). Busch uses this point to argue that the farther away you are from the literal action of pulling the trigger in the command structure, the easier it is to issue the order. Then in tandem, the closer you are in the chain of command to pulling the trigger, the harder it is to resist the order being given. Browning makes a slight distinction from Busch arguing that “though atrocities of this kind were too often tolerated, condoned, or tacitly (sometimes even explicitly) encouraged by elements of the command structure, they did not represent official government policy” (160-161). This is an interesting distinction because while Browning supports Busch’s point that those near the bottom of the command structure are encouraged to perform heinous acts, Browning argued that these frequently were not official policy. An excellent example of this is given in Winfried Garsha’s paper in Ordinary Austrians. She describes the interrogation of four SA officers who confessed to their crimes:

Each of them was convinced that those Jews, whom they had shot, had been too weak or sick to survive the horrendous evacuation march. They regarded such a shooting as a kind of coup de grace. None of them showed any sign of feeling guilty. They had just followed an order to kill all those who were not able to keep the pace (308).

Here we can see that while they had received the order to kill those who didn’t keep the pace, these soldiers then extended the purview of that order and killed everyone who was too weak or sick. This kind of a result makes sense, especially when considering atrocities specifically committed on the battlefield. Those sorts of acts are committed in the heat of the moment rather than as a premeditated order sent down from superior officers. Battlefield frenzy can be made more or less likely based upon the attitudes and actions of both the men themselves and their superior officers. It is important to recognize that it appears that both of these things may be true at once. We know that the “final solution” was created in the highest essiolons of Nazi leadership, but it appears that many atrocities were by individuals in the heat of the moment with the right combination of hatred and intensity. Thus, it appears that ordinary people can be brought to commit horrible acts because those lowest on the command structure are pressured by their superiors to do so, and the stress of the battlefield combined with their officer’s attitudes creates an environment in which atrocity is condoned.

The attitudes and direct orders of officers does not uniquely explain why it is that soldiers might commit atrocity. Often during the heat of battle soldiers can do horrible things to enemy soldiers. Browning explains, “soldiers who were inured to violence, numbed to the taking of human life, embittered over their own casualties, and frustrated by the tenacity of an insidious and seemingly inhuman enemy sometimes exploded and at other times grimly resolved to have their revenge at the first opportunity” (Browning 160). This tendency to take revenge is frequently referred to as battlefield frenzy. As mentioned prior, the attitudes and orders of officers can make battlefield frenzy more likely and more vicious; however, they are not necessarily required to enable the frenzy.

Not only does battlefield frenzy explain why a soldier might do horrible things, the desensitization factor is also important to consider. Browning explains that “once the killing began, however, the men became increasingly brutalized. As in combat, the horrors of the initial encounter eventually routine, and the killing became progressively easier” (161). There is a learning curve when it comes to killing. It is a steep one at the beginning. The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were literally sickened the first time they were required to kill anyone. It became easier and easier for them as the war continued until they would routinely take naked pregnant women out into fields and shoot them (Browning). It is strikingly easy for the human mind to adapt and adjust to almost any change. This many times works to our benefit, but in this case only exacerbated the already horrible policies of Nazi Germany.

Who is Responsible?

This essay has considered up until this point the stories and situations of both civilians and the military in Nazi Germany during World War II. Relatively normal people were brought to commit horrible atrocities that shook the world. We have explored some of the potential reasons that someone might participate in the evils of Nazi Germany. The question may then arise, are they responsible for their actions? I would argue that yes, they are responsible for what they did to a certain extent, but not without giving considerations of the greater context around them. Just as an awful person who grew up in an awful situation is responsible for their actions, but their context should be considered, so it must be with people under Nazi Germany. Perhaps this idea can be best phrased this way; the possible explanations for someone’s behavior does not then qualify as an excuse for said behavior. Every single person who participated in or condoned what happened in Nazi Germany is responsible for the part they played. This does mean that there are varying degrees of responsibility and also means that not everyone must be prosecuted. It is generally readily agreed that the likes of Hitler, his leadership, and those directly involved in death camps should face punishment for their actions, but the silent neighbor who did not object to his Jewish friend being taken away, while responsible for that action, and that silence, is probably not prosecutable by law. If we are not responsible to the law, then we will be held responsible by our conscience. Fascinatingly enough, Nazism taught that absolute responsibility resided in Hitler himself. Thornton Sinclair, a contemporary, in his paper The Nazi Party Rally at Nuremberg, described Nazism’s view on responsibility as this:

According to this theory, the leaders, as a natural elite, make decisions for which they bear complete responsibility, while the followers follow faithfully. Over all is Hitler whose single will ultimately guides the Reich. He is finally responsible. Between leader and follower there is said to be a strong bond of faith, love, and loyalty (570).

This is an incredibly nefarious and intelligent move on Hitler’s part. By taking responsibility away from people and bringing it on himself, individuals can suddenly alleviate themselves of their conscience because they can rationalize their actions with “Hitler said so” and then be able to cast all blame onto him. Therefore, if you wish to live in a way where you would not participate in a regime like Nazi Germany’s, you must take responsibility for your own actions. Don’t blame someone else, or your circumstance, for your choices, for they are yours, and yours alone.

There is one question that naturally arises from a discussion of atrocity such as this: so what? Why does it matter? The optimist might argue that given all that we know about Nazi Germany it is impossible for a similar regime to rise again. However, we have seen atrocity and genocide be committed many times since the fall of Nazism. On the other hand, the pessimist may argue that it is inevitable that further atrocities will occur. And while yes, it is inevitable that situations like those in Nazi Germany will rise again, it is possible that if a critical mass of individuals can say no to atrocity that it can, by and large, be prevented. We therefore have the responsibility to understand why people commit atrocities and learn how to hedge ourselves against those influences.

Many would argue that those who influence the greatest number of people arguably have the greatest responsibility to understand the motivations behind genocide as laid out in this paper. Teachers, politicians, and leaders in general stand in the spotlight of our lives and do influence many people for better and for worse. I however would argue that the ultimate responsibility falls on the individual, on you who is reading this paper. Only you can determine if you will participate; if you will exacerbate an already awful situation. You must understand history through the lens of the perpetrator rather than the victim. No matter how noble you believe yourself to be you would almost certainly have been a Nazi in 1940. And just as you bear ultimate responsibility for your actions, I bear the responsibility for mine. Maybe one person will be able to read this and properly understand that it is they who would commit the atrocity, and maybe this time they won’t. Maybe one life is saved, maybe a nation is saved. At the end of the day maybe I have hope that humanity truly can transcend its darkest tendencies.

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Works Cited

Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and The Final Solution in Poland. HarperColins, 1992.

Busch, Christophe. “2 Demonic Transitions: How Ordinary People Can Commit Extraordinary Evil.” Genocide, 2016, pp. 49–82., doi.org/10.1515/9789048518654-004.

Casmir, Fred L. “Nazi Rhetoric: A Rhetoric of Fear.” Today's Speech, vol. 16, no. 3, 1968, pp. 15–18., doi.org/10.1080/01463376809385490.

Connor, John W. “From Ghost Dance to Death Camps: Nazi Germany as a Crisis Cult.” Ethos, vol. 17, no. 3, 1989, pp. 259–288., doi.org/10.1525/eth.1989.17.3.02a00010.

Garscha, Winfried R. “Ordinary Austrians:” Austrian Lives, 2012, pp. 304–326., doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1n2txnx.17.

Grunberger, Richard. A Social History of the Third Reich. Phoenix, 2005.

Pergher, Roberta. “The Ethics of Consent—Regime and People in the Historiographies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.” Contemporary European History, vol. 24, no. 2, 2015, pp. 309–315., doi.org/10.1017/s0960777315000119.

Sinclair, Thornton. “The Nazi Party Rally at Nuremberg.” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 4, 1938, p. 570., doi.org/10.1086/265232.

Unger, Aryeh L. “The Public Opinion Reports of the Nazi Party.” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 4, 1965, p. 565., doi.org/10.1086/267360.

Welch, David. “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 39, no. 2, 2004, pp. 213–238., doi.org/10.1177/0022009404042129.