Michael Rojas-Steinbrecher

Western Civilization

Lansen

12/14/10

Aftermath of Nazis

Nazis have a reputation for being some of the most evil group of people

in history. They were behind the Holocaust, which killed over six million Jews. This

number could be higher if it weren’t for tens of thousands of Jews escaping certain

death from the Nazis. Even though the Nazis killed so many people, we cannot classify

each Nazi as being evil and inherently evil because there is evidence of some good Nazis.

This is also true for the Jews; we cannot say all Jews are cowards just because some did

flee persecution.

The Holocaust was the genocide of over six million Jews in Europe by the Nazis.

Hitler, the Nazi leader, believed that the Aryan race was the superior race and that

Germany should only consist of pure Aryans. Anybody else should either leave Germany

or die. At first the Nazis didn’t see killing as the only option. They told Jews and other

non-Aryans to leave, but eventually it escalated to the point where killing them was the

most effective way to get rid of these untermenschen. The Nazis had tried to get rid of

untermenschen with the Final Aim, but that plan failed so the Final Solution went into

effect. The Final Solution was the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews and any other non-

Aryans. The Nazis were definitely split about these executions. Some Nazis had no
problem killing innocent people, while others were more humane and saw that this was

bad or they just couldn’t handle it.

In the book Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in

Poland, the Battalion 101 was told that they were going to kill innocent Jews and that

anybody who did not feel comfortable killing these people could back down and work

on something different. Even though there were some Nazis who did take part in killing

the Jews. The majority didn’t kill them because they hated the Jewish race, but because

they didn’t want to look bad or they saw some benefits in participating in these killings.

Now some of these members did do it because they thought they hated Jews, but the

majority did it for other reasons. The ones that went through with the killings out of

pure hatred really were evil. They wanted to take the life of an innocent person who

was born into a religion, they had no choice, they could not decide what religion they

wanted when they were born. To be evil is to completely disregard another life except

for ones own. According to this definition, many of these men were evil. On the other

hand, there were members of Battalion 101 who did not feel comfortable in killing Jews.

They knew that killing innocent people was not right. No matter what these people did,

they didn’t deserve to die, so they couldn’t go through with the killings. Some of the

members of Battalion 101 would go inside houses pretending to look for Jews when

they knew they were supposed to kill them or round them up. This example here shows

that yes some Nazis, at least in Battalion 101, were evil enough to kill innocent people,

but yet other Nazis still were humans and couldn’t find it in them to kill someone that

did nothing wrong.

 To be inherently evil is to be born evil, to be evil by nature. Now you can see

that in the lower ranks, like Battalion 101, that there were both evil Nazis, and good

Nazis. This is not the case, as the ranks get higher with people like Reinhard Heydrich,

Carl Clauberg, Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler. These men were in the higher

ranks, so they did not actually have to do killings themselves, but they did order people

to go through with killings. These higher ranked officials were inherently evil.

Reinhard Heydrich was the man appointed to solve the “Jewish Problem”. He

had to find a way to either export the Jews out of Germany, which ended up being the

Final Aim. At first they tried to export the Jews out of the country. Many of the Jews

got sent to Poland to the General Gouvernement of Poland, which was unoccupied.

When Germany acquired territory in Poland they acquired more Jews too. Instead of

exporting these Jews, they decided that it would be easier and cheaper just to kill them.

The Einsatzgruppen were in charge of these killings. The Einsatzgruppen would beat

and kill Jews and then put up signs telling them to be careful. They eventually took the

Jews out of the villages and either made them dig there own and get shot into them, or

the got the villagers, who lived with these Jews, to kill them. They did it willingly

because they did not like the Jews and they were also able to take their belongings.

Reinhard Heydrich was the person who organized all this together. He is

inherently evil for doing this because he is giving orders to kill innocent people. Many

people are not sure whether or not he would actually do the killings himself. It is so

much easier to give somebody orders to go through with a mass killing then actually do

it yourself. You sit behind closed doors giving orders for somebody to do your dirty
work. Heydrich didn’t have to see the look in his victims faces right as they were about

to get shot. He didn’t have to feel the warm blood splatter onto his face and clothes.

He didn’t have to smell the scent of burning human flesh. All that Heydrich had to do

was to write the Schnellbrief and the orders were sent to the lower ranks. There is no

doubt in anybody’s mind that Reinhard Heydrich was an inherently evil man who was

responsible for killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people, but whether or not he

would have actually done the killings himself is questionable.

Carl Clauberg was a Nazi doctor who started off his career not killing Jews, but

finding a cost effective way to sterilize people. The Nazis were deathly afraid of the

contamination of ubermenshen by breeding with untermenschen. The Nazis classified

anybody that wasn’t Aryan to be part of the untermenschen. At first Clauberg was

supposed to find a way to sterilize genetically diseased people because it costs as much

to keep one genetically diseased person as it would a family of four. It turned out to be

that it was too much of a hassle to do a mass sterilization, so Hitler wanted a cost

effective mercy kill. Clauberg came up with the idea to use shower chambers that

dispensed carbon monoxide to kill his victims. His group killed 5000 children and by

1941, over 70,000 people died. Unlike other top officials in the Nazi party that ordered

people to go through with the killings, Dr. Carl Clauberg actually did some of the killings

himself. He did various experiments to see what was the easiest way to kill people.

Eventually they found that Zyklon-B, a germicide was a cheap and very effective way to

kill people. Clauberg and his fellow doctors created the method for killing people. There

is not even a chance that this man was even a little bit nice. He was pure evil. Clauberg
conducted experiments, came up with a method, and did the killings himself along with

other people. There is no reason why somebody shouldn’t think of Carl Clauberg as an

inherently evil man.

Adolf Eichmann was a self-proclaimed Jewish expert and believed he understood

Jews better than any other person. He was in charge of Amt4 B4, which was an office

that created methods of removing Jews from Germany. A couple of years later,

Eichmann gets picked to create a large capacity death camp because the current death

camps are not sufficient. Over a couple of months, Eichmann experiments on Soviet

POWs to see if his new gas chambers work. After the killings he makes plans on how to

set up the camp so that people can be killed and disposed of effectively. He creates one

of the highest capacity death camps around.

Oddly enough how it seems, it is pretty difficult classify Adolf Eichmann as an

inherently evil man. Yes he did commit horrendous crimes, but the reasons he did these

actions were different from others like Heydrich and Clauberg. Eichmann doesn’t do the

things he does because he hates the Jews, but because he was ordered to do so. He

couldn’t really think for himself, so he cannot be considered inherently evil. Eichmann

was also a follower, he liked to be part of a group, and so he would do what he could to

fit in. Another big reason he did the things he did was because that is what he thought

was normal. Eichmann sees other people killing Jews, so he does the same exact thing

so he wouldn’t be different. Because of this, I believe it is incorrect to call Adolf

Eichmann inherently evil instead of just evil.

 Heinrich Himmler was the man who created the Schutzstaffel, also known as the

SS, as well as the security service and Nazi intelligence group the SD. He also made the

Secret State Police, the Gestapo. The Gestapo was a nightmare to the Jews. They

enforced the rules and basically did whatever they wanted to do to the Jews. Himmler

was one of the biggest threats to the Jews because of these groups that he created. The

SS created one of the first concentration camps, Dachau, which was used as a model for

the other concentration camps that were to be built later. Himmler would later be the

overseer of the concentration camps, extermination camps, and the Einsatzgruppen.

Himmler was partially responsible for most of the killings that occurred in the camps

and with the killing squad, Einsatzgruppen. Because of this, Himmler should be

considered inherently evil.

These concentration camps and extermination camps were pure evil. In the

concentration camps, thousands of Jews were confined to a small living area. They

were not provided sufficient food, housing, or quality sanitation. The extermination

camps were simply camps that held prisoners to kill them, nothing else. There was not

even a single bit of hope of survival at an extermination camp. The Einsatzgruppen

were killing squads that killed innocent Jews in villages. All these evil things were

overseen by Himmler, which in the end made him evil too.

Camp Commander Gemmeker at Westerbork was one man who could be seen as

evil or nice. In the eyes of any Jew at Westerbork, he was seen as a very evil man. He

deported many Jews off to other camps where they would likely die. But for an instance

Gemmeker was not an evil man. A baby had been born in his camp and Gemmeker had
a thing for babies. Even though this baby was Jewish, he wanted to personally take care

of it and make sure that it survived. He got everything that he needed to ensure the

babies survival. He even gave the baby Hennessy Cognac, which is extremely expensive

cognac. Because of Gemmeker’s kindness, the baby grew up healthy and strong.

However, once the baby was able to survive on its own, Gemmeker did not see it as an

innocent baby, but as a filthy Jew. He didn’t help out the baby from then on. Even

though he didn’t help this child all the way through its life, he did help it out. This shows

that not all Nazis are inherently evil, some can be nice to a point, which is a lot more

than people give them credit for. Gemmeker was not evil to babies or anything that was

innocent, but once this person stopped being innocent, he became an inherently evil

man.

I believe that we should not classify all Nazis the same way. The top Nazis should

be considered inherently evil because they gave the orders to the lower ranks, where

the lower ranked Nazis could be regarded as inherently evil, evil, or not evil. There were

some Nazis who enjoyed killing Jews because they truly hated them. There were others

who killed them because that was there order, even though they had other options.

Finally the Nazis who were not evil were the Nazis who did their best to not kill or help

out the Jews in any way they could. Nazis in general can be considered all three types.

There is another half to the Holocaust, the Jewish half. Looking back at what the

Jews did to survive the Holocaust, many people would think that they were cowards.

They ran away and many did not fight back, which would make it seem like they were

cowards. It is more complicated than it seems.

 A coward is a person who doesn’t stand up for themselves or their beliefs. A

coward is somebody who has no courage because they are afraid of the unpleasant

consequences. Looking back at what the Jews did and the definition of a coward, you

can say that most of the Jews were cowards. But who wouldn’t do the things they did?

Who wouldn’t run away from somebody that wants to kill you or do you harm? Jews

did what any person would and try to stay alive or avoid danger. I do believe that most

Jews are cowards when you use the definition given earlier, but I also believe that most

humans are cowards by nature. The Jews did what almost anybody would do if they

were in their situation. I don’t think its fair to put the label coward on the Jews from the

Holocaust when any other person would do the same exact thing.

Kristallnacht was one of the main reasons why large amounts of Jews fled. The

Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses and beat up Jews on Kristallnact, or The Night of

Broken Glass. The year before Kristallnacht, about 35,000 Jews left Germany. The year

after Kristallnacht, 65,000 Jews left. There is a 30,000 person difference from before

and after Kristallnacht. According to the definition of a coward, these Jews are cowards.

They didn’t stand up for themselves; they just fled the Germany because they were too

scared to live there. I do not feel comfortable calling these Jews cowards though

because any human would do the same exact thing if they were able to. Nobody would

want to live in an area where they might get killed because of their race. I do not

believe these Jews are cowards, but they are human.

Herschel Grynzspan was a Polish Jew living France in 1938. During this time all

Polish Jews were to renew their passport or lose their citizenship. In October the Nazis
forced 15,000 Jews out of Poland. Herschel’s family was part of those 15,000 Jews

being forced out. Herschel buys a gun and shoots Ernst von Roth, the third secretary in

the German Embassy. His actions are a perfect example of how not all Jews are

cowards. Herschel fought back by himself. He knew the trouble that he would get in,

but it was worth every bit of punishment that he would receive. Herschel in no way is a

coward.

Another example of how Jews were not cowards was in the Warsaw Ghetto

Revolt. The Jewish Fighting Organization, JFO, was a Jewish militia in the Warsaw

Ghetto run by Mordecai Anielewicz. The Warsaw Ghetto was split between people

following orders from the Elders and people who were in the JFO. The reason some

people were with the Elders was because they thought they could survive under the

direction of the Elders. Once the Final Aim failed and the Final Solution was taken into

place, people realized that fighting gave them the best chance of survival.

On January 18, 1943, the JFO bump into a Nazi Patrol. The JFO killed twenty of

the Nazi soldiers and wounded forty others. This event was the spark to the bigger fire,

the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. The JFO create a satellite bunker system that was hidden

throughout the whole Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis moved in to clear the ghetto for

Hitler’s birthday, but were surprised by the JFO. The Jewish resistance surprise attacked

the Nazis, forcing them to withdraw from the ghetto.

This event was one of the best examples showing Jewish action against the

Nazis. At this moment, these Jews did not care about any consequence that they would

face from revolting. Death was the only outcome that was possible for people who
didn’t revolt, but there was a slight chance of survival for those who did fight back. They

fought the Nazis knowing their chances of winning were very slim. Because of this, not

all Jews can be considered cowards.

The Nazis were responsible for the death of millions of people during the late

1930’s and early 1940’s. They were responsible for the killing of six million Jews in

Europe. Because of this, many people believe that Nazis are inherently evil. However

there is evidence proving that some Nazis are in fact evil, while other are not necessarily

evil. Another question comes up when looking back at the Holocaust, and that is if Jews

are cowards. Just like the previous question, there are examples of both Jews being

cowards as well as Jews standing up and fighting back. Both these questions will be

debated for years to come. Eventually the answers to these questions are a matter of

opinion, what one person thinks is not necessarily what another might.