The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior

Book excerpt: A psycho-historical survey of the Holocaust, focusing on the behavior of both the German perpetrators and the victims. Regards the Holocaust as a historically unique mass destruction, in terms of its motivation (the Jews posed no physical challenge to Nazi rule), its methods (industrialized killing), its emotional aspect, as well as its totality. It can be conceptualized as a historical crisis which disrupted the apparent continuity of Western history and shattered Western thought and culture. Approaches the question why it was in Germany that the unparalleled genocide program against the Jews was implemented. Sees the answer in the formation of German culture since the 16th century, which made its people culturally vulnerable to authoritarian and anti-intellectual leadership; in the deprivations and humiliation brought about by World War I; and in Hitler's personality. Proposes a psycho-history of the SS and its increasing involvement with the Holocaust. Distinguishes between the roles of victims and resisters among the Jews. For most of the Jews, their fallacy of innocence, their confidence that there was no cause to kill them, caused them to ignore their victim status and diminished their chances to survive. Contends that for the Jews of the Holocaust, resistance and anti-Nazi violence had a therapeutic value rather than being a tactic of rescue. Reviews existing interpretations of the Holocaust: liberal ones, Freudian, Marxist and neo-Marxist, as well as philosophical-religious, and finds them unsatisfactory. The Holocaust cannot be assimilated in terms of normative Western thought structures.