"Those imposing it do not feel bad. They feel righteous."
It's even worse than that! As I recall, buried in the footnotes of his gruesomely-detailed, terror-filled book, "KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps," Nikolaus Wachsmann includes this horrifying anecdote: years after the war, a German or Austrian (I don't remember, exactl…
"Those imposing it do not feel bad. They feel righteous."
It's even worse than that! As I recall, buried in the footnotes of his gruesomely-detailed, terror-filled book, "KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps," Nikolaus Wachsmann includes this horrifying anecdote: years after the war, a German or Austrian (I don't remember, exactly) psychologist sent out hundreds of surveys to fellow mental health specialists asking if they treated anyone who helped implement the Holocaust (soldiers assisting in the murder of millions of innocent European/Jewish civilians.) That is, how many felt racked with guilt about their inhumane actions? He received one reply.
There all kinds of selection bias in that approach, though. People who helped implement the Holocaust may have been unlikely to survive the war, unlikely to seek mental health treatment if they did, etc.
The Germans did have a problem with soldiers experiencing trauma, guilt, etc. because of participating in atrocities. I don't know of any quantitative studies of the phenomenon (or if that would have been possible). But senior Nazis discussed the problem and it was one reason they preferred to use Einsatzgruppen and concentration camps for that purpose.
"Those imposing it do not feel bad. They feel righteous."
It's even worse than that! As I recall, buried in the footnotes of his gruesomely-detailed, terror-filled book, "KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps," Nikolaus Wachsmann includes this horrifying anecdote: years after the war, a German or Austrian (I don't remember, exactly) psychologist sent out hundreds of surveys to fellow mental health specialists asking if they treated anyone who helped implement the Holocaust (soldiers assisting in the murder of millions of innocent European/Jewish civilians.) That is, how many felt racked with guilt about their inhumane actions? He received one reply.
There all kinds of selection bias in that approach, though. People who helped implement the Holocaust may have been unlikely to survive the war, unlikely to seek mental health treatment if they did, etc.
The Germans did have a problem with soldiers experiencing trauma, guilt, etc. because of participating in atrocities. I don't know of any quantitative studies of the phenomenon (or if that would have been possible). But senior Nazis discussed the problem and it was one reason they preferred to use Einsatzgruppen and concentration camps for that purpose.