Germans, otherwise individually rational, yielded themselves to pathological fantasies about the Jews. In that climate, where masses of Germans had lost the ability to distinguish between the real Jew and the mythic Jew of anti-Semitic invention, the chiliastic system of National Socialist beliefs could further influence their already distorted sense of reality. Belief in National Socialism was like belief in magic and witchcraft during the Middle Ages, similarly ruling and inflaming the minds of men. […]
In medieval days entire communities were seized with witchcraft hysteria, and in modern Germany the mass psychosis of anti-Semitism deranged a whole people. According to their system of beliefs, elimination of the Jews resembled medieval exorcism of the Devil. The accomplishment of both, it was variously held, would restore grace to the world.
As a result of this mass hysteria, the Germans considered themselves as
latter-day Laocoöns in the grip of a death struggle. In a paranoid vision they believed themselves to be innocent and aggrieved victims, outwitted by the machinations of a super-cunning and all-powerful antagonist, engaged in a struggle for their very existence. […] Consequently, in the deluded German mind, every Jewish man, woman, and child became a panoplied warrior of a vast Satanic fighting machine.16
And again twenty-five years later, another American bestselling author, political scientist Daniel Goldhagen, held out the very same message to his readers. In an extended echo of Dawidowicz, Goldhagen insisted that the explanation of the Nazi persecution of the Jews indeed lay in the delusional German obsession with the idea ‘that Jewry was locked in an apocalyptic battle with Germandom.’ Thus, as to Dawidowicz, to Goldhagen the Germans considered the extermination of the Jews necessary and justified: ‘Letting such a mortal threat persist, fester, and build was to let down one’s countrymen, to betray one’s loved ones.’17
What interpretations such as those of Von dem Bach, Cohen, Dawidowicz and Goldhagen obviously have in common is their emphasis on the ←22 | 23→ideological, and even pathological motivation of the persecutors. Their behavior is considered to have been the outcome of a perverted world-view, an extreme and compulsive form of ‘idealism’, which considered the Jews as a mortal threat to their existence; a threat which dictated (and justified) their annihilation.
The continued popularity of such ‘patho-ideological’ Holocaust explanations is undoubtedly caused by their logical simplicity. For it is indeed clear that Hitler’s terror and annihilation policies were ideologically inspired. Consequently, it also seems obvious to assume that their organizers and executors were motivated by the very same incentive. Moreover, such a conclusion appears to correspond with a rather basic view on the human condition and its psychology of motivation. Thus, we generally tend to relate extraordinary acts to correspondingly extraordinary motives. As every good deed is supposed to result from benevolent intentions, much the same applies to its opposite: bad deeds are commonly held to be caused by malignant intent. The ‘logic of evil’, therefore, requires that behind an extraordinary crime correspondingly exceptional evil motives lie hidden. Consequently, in the case of the extraordinary crime of the Nazi genocide there exists a strong inclination to rationalize the systematic physical extermination of millions of innocent and defenseless men, women and children by reference to the perpetrators’ paranoid delirium. In this way one arrives at what might be dubbed the ‘equilibrium of madness’, by applying the circular formula that insanity breeds insanity. Essentially, this way of clarifying the incomprehensible by means of the incomprehensible is what characterizes the patho-ideological perspective on the perpetrators of Nazi genocide.
In spite of its apparent appeal, however, this ‘Laoconian-style’ interpretation does not answer the question posed by Michael Marrus in any satisfactory way. Indeed, among its flaws is its very simplicity. For if the crimes and criminals of Nazism could so easily be understood by reference to its pathological ideology, the question arises why so few of their contemporaries failed to grasp the logic at the time. If, as suggested in Laoconian-type retrospection, the blueprint of mass destruction was so unambiguously present in the propaganda speeches and writings of Adolf Hitler and his likes, and if the bloodlust flickered so prominently in the eyes of their followers, how ignorant must these contemporaries then not have been to overlook the ←23 | 24→message? For obvious reasons, an explicit answer to this question is generally avoided, but it is not all too difficult to figure out that it would not be particularly flattering for the victims of Nazi persecution.
That the patho-ideological perspectives lean heavily on hindsight simplifications also becomes clear if one takes a closer look at their core arguments. In order to disclose the psychology of the Third Reich mass murderer, its advocates recruit these arguments from leading Nazi hate propagandists and simply project them – quite often literally – onto the minds of the Nazi executioners.18 But whoever considers Hitler’s genocidal collaborators as mere replicas of their Führer ignores the crucial importance of their personal motives. That these motives matter in the light of Marrus’ question can be illustrated by a closer look at the organization chiefly responsible for Hitler’s terror policies. Thus, Himmler and Heydrich recruited many of their leading Gestapo officials from among experienced CID men who had already proven their professional qualities during the Weimar Republic and who were far more concerned with the advancement of their careers than with any party-political ideology. The best known example in this respect was, of course, the infamous Gestapo chief who was to become Adolf Eichmann’s superior in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Heinrich Müller.
Müller had entered the Munich Metropolitan Police at the age of 19, shortly after the end of World War I. He rapidly advanced in its political department, where he received the task of monitoring left-wing parties and earned a reputation as a particularly ruthless Communist-baiter. In 1933 Himmler and Heydrich recruited Müller for their newly established Bayerische Politische Polizei (the precursor of the Gestapo), in spite of the fact that Müller was no Nazi Party member. Indeed, he would – without much enthusiasm – only become one as late as 1939, when he became head of the Gestapo. A political evaluation report of two years earlier praised him for his draconic measures against the Communists during the Weimar era, but tellingly added:
It is no less clear, however, that had it been his task, Müller would have proceeded just the same against the Right. With his vast ambition and relentless drive, he would have done anything to win the appreciation of whoever might be boss in a given system.
For this reason, the Ortsgruppenleiter of Munich-Pasing had observed about Müller, somewhat earlier: ‘We cannot very well imagine him as a ←24 | 25→party comrade.’ And yet, only a few years later this unwelcome party comrade belonged to the elite circle of Hitler’s extermination experts.
Another example is Müller’s colleague, Franz Josef Huber. If Müller’s ruthless opportunism was frowned upon in party circles, Huber was originally considered an outright enemy of the Nazi movement. As Müller, he had been employed at the political department of the Munich CID before 1933. But whereas Müller had persecuted the left, Huber’s ‘victims’ were on the right side of the political spectrum. In a fiercely critical party evaluation report of 1937, Huber is said to have been an informer on Nazi colleagues during the Weimar years and even to have referred to Hitler as a ‘runaway, unemployed house-painter’ and an ‘Austrian deserter’. Hardly surprising then, Huber was scheduled to be executed after the Nazi’s came to power. Heydrich saved him by offering him a post in his police force. Huber finally wound up as Gestapo chief of Vienna.19
For the moment these two examples may suffice to underline the caution required when identifying the motives of the perpetrators. For it is by no means self-evident to assume ‘idealist’ intentions with Hitler’s genocidal collaborators solely on the basis of their involvement in the crime. Without doubt, Huber and particularly Müller belonged to the leading men of this group. But their motives appear to have remained at a fair distance from the paranoid ones discussed earlier. Apparently, others could be at least as inspiring.
But the most important objection against the patho-ideological perspective remains its paradoxical exoneration of the perpetrators. Inspired by their revolting crimes, the advocates of the Laoconian point of view underscore