Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND CORE CONCEPTS
- PART II THE ROOTS OF HELPING OTHER PEOPLE IN NEED IN CONTRAST TO PASSIVITY
- PART III HOW CHILDREN BECOME CARING AND HELPFUL RATHER THAN HOSTILE AND AGGRESSIVE
- PART IV THE ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE, MASS KILLING, AND OTHER COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE
- 21 A Note on the Cultural–Societal Roots of Violence
- 22 The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers
- 23 Steps Along a Continuum of Destruction: Perpetrators and Bystanders
- 24 The SS and the Psychology of Perpetrators: The Interweaving and Merging of Role and Person
- 25 The Origins of Genocide: Rwanda
- 26 Bystanders as Evil: The Example of Rwanda
- 27 Individual and Group Identities in Genocide and Mass Killing
- 28 Mass Murder: U.S. Involvement as Perpetrator, Passive Bystander, Helper
- 29 When Instigation Does Not Result in Mass Murder
- 30 Persian Gulf Conflict Was Reflection of Stormy Undercurrents in U.S. Psyche
- 31 Mob Violence: Cultural–Societal Sources, Instigators, Group Processes, and Participants
- 32 Understanding and Preventing Police Violence
- PART V THE AFTERMATH OF MASS VIOLENCE: TRAUMA, HEALING, PREVENTION, AND RECONCILIATION
- PART VI CREATING CARING, MORALLY INCLUSIVE, PEACEFUL SOCIETIES
- Appendix: What Are Your Values and Goals?
- Index
24 - The SS and the Psychology of Perpetrators: The Interweaving and Merging of Role and Person
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND CORE CONCEPTS
- PART II THE ROOTS OF HELPING OTHER PEOPLE IN NEED IN CONTRAST TO PASSIVITY
- PART III HOW CHILDREN BECOME CARING AND HELPFUL RATHER THAN HOSTILE AND AGGRESSIVE
- PART IV THE ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE, MASS KILLING, AND OTHER COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE
- 21 A Note on the Cultural–Societal Roots of Violence
- 22 The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers
- 23 Steps Along a Continuum of Destruction: Perpetrators and Bystanders
- 24 The SS and the Psychology of Perpetrators: The Interweaving and Merging of Role and Person
- 25 The Origins of Genocide: Rwanda
- 26 Bystanders as Evil: The Example of Rwanda
- 27 Individual and Group Identities in Genocide and Mass Killing
- 28 Mass Murder: U.S. Involvement as Perpetrator, Passive Bystander, Helper
- 29 When Instigation Does Not Result in Mass Murder
- 30 Persian Gulf Conflict Was Reflection of Stormy Undercurrents in U.S. Psyche
- 31 Mob Violence: Cultural–Societal Sources, Instigators, Group Processes, and Participants
- 32 Understanding and Preventing Police Violence
- PART V THE AFTERMATH OF MASS VIOLENCE: TRAUMA, HEALING, PREVENTION, AND RECONCILIATION
- PART VI CREATING CARING, MORALLY INCLUSIVE, PEACEFUL SOCIETIES
- Appendix: What Are Your Values and Goals?
- Index
Summary
The SS (Schutzstaffel) was created as an elite bodyguard for Hitler in the early 1920s and eventually became the organization that had primary responsibility for the Nazi genocide. The following section, taken from the chapter called “The SS and the psychology of perpetrators,” shows how people evolved with their roles. The personalities of the SS men and the roles they fulfilled intersected, merged, and became deeply interwoven.
Given the initial self-selection, the progressive identification with the institution, the evolution of the SS into a system devoted to mass murder in the context of changes in the larger system of Germany, and learning through participation, the psychological condition of many SS members came to fit the role they were to fulfill. They became well adapted to their functions, following the rules and operating procedures and treating their victims as contaminated material to be disposed of.
The “ideal” SS man was not personally brutal and did not enjoy the suffering of victims. He could even treat individual Jews well while serving the machinery of their murder. This level of development is demonstrated by a fictional character, O'Brien, in George Orwell's 1984. O'Brien, the torturer of Winston Smith, inflicts indescribable pain and terror, but does so in a kindly manner, as if it is a necessary task against his inclination. Dr. Wilhelm Pfonnerstiel, professor of hygiene at the University of Marburg and SS lieutenant colonel, reporting after the war on a wartime visit to the concentration camp at Belzec, said: “I wanted to know in particular if the process of exterminating human beings was accompanied by any act of cruelty.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of Good and EvilWhy Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others, pp. 336 - 340Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003