Abstract
In this chapter, the author examines testimonial accounts of Nazi perpetrators. Outlining the ethical claims made by the authors of these memoirs, Pettitt shows how these figures attempt to locate their own culpability within a wider schema of social and political events. Taking the testimony of Rudolf Höss as an exemplary account, the author uses the existential theories of Jean-Paul Sartre and Erving Goffman to articulate the ethical dilemmas that these perpetrators raise. In the end, the author shows that many such testimonies function by depicting a ‘cog-in-the-machine’ mentality; this allows for larger notions of self-sacrifice, determination and human responsibility to be explored.
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Notes
- 1.
Kaltenbrunner was the chief of the Reichsicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) and SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS. Göring was Reichsmarschall of the Third Reich, a position ranked second only to Hitler himself. He was also the founder of the Gestapo.
- 2.
There are comparisons to be drawn here between this dual-existence and the psychical doubling that is expounded by Robert J. Lifton. As has been discussed elsewhere, Lifton argues that the role of Nazi doctors at Auschwitz necessitated a psychical split in order that the individual may maintain his or her perception of self as fundamentally ‘decent’ (see Lifton, 2000/1986). A similar mechanism is seen in Höss’s case but here the divide is a conscious one, applied retrospectively, implying a move away from the psychological theories enhanced by Lifton. Nevertheless, since the notion of the divided self is essential to the construction of the ‘ethical self’, it might be said that the rupture fulfils a similar function in both cases.
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Pettitt, J. (2017). Cogs in the Machine: Testimonies of Holocaust Perpetrators. In: Perpetrators in Holocaust Narratives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52575-4_5
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