Some may imagine that the very idea of a "Nazi conscience" is a contradiction in terms - after all, weren't Nazis responsible for some of the most immoral acts of the 20th century, if not of all human history? Dismissing the Nazis as monsters without a conscience is too easy and simplistic, however. The Nazis were humans like everyone else and their acts, as immoral as they were, followed logically and easily from a set of assumptions and beliefs which constituted a conscience.
Summary
Title: The Nazi Conscience
Author: Claudia Koonz
Publisher: Belknap (Harvard University) Press
ISBN: 0674011724
Pro:
• Explores the corruption of the sciences in the service of "ethnic fundamentalism"
• Written in an easy style, accessible to most readers
Con:
• None
Description:
• Analysis of how the Nazis developed a philosophy and ethic of racial superiority
• Includes information on how academic leaders helped justify and legitimize Nazi beliefs
• Focuses primarily on public actions and discussions in the creation of a public moral philosophy
Book Review
It is important to understand how the Nazis came to believe that they were behaving reasonably and morally because we today cannot regard ourselves as any less susceptible to developing beliefs and attitudes which might lead us down the wrong road as well. Because the Nazis were as human as everyone else, studying their beliefs and actions means studying us, too, however difficult it might be to look too long into that particular mirror.
Claudia Koonz, Professor of History at Duke University, has written a number of very helpful books on Nazi history and The Nazi Conscience is one which everyone interested in the subject should spend time with. Koonz explores how the Nazis constructed a moral philosophy and worldview around the need for coherence and order as an antidote to the liberalism and democracy of the Weimar Republic.
The Nazis were radicals with a traditionalist theme: they promoted a revolution led by radicals who wanted to tear down the institutions of both the Left and Right, but they also promised to replace everything with "traditional" institutions based upon old-fashioned values, honor, dignity, Christianity, and the primacy of the Volk. It's not surprising that this agenda was very appealing to many religious traditionalists in Germany; it's not a coincidence that similar agendas continue to appeal to religious traditionalists today. This is why understanding such agendas and why they are so appealing continue to be important.
It was the primacy of the Volk which caused Nazi philosophy to develop a highly relativistic morality in which all moral obligations were due only to members of the same ethnic group - thus it was appropriate to treat Aryans as moral equals but non-Aryans as moral inferiors. Conscience is about to whom we owe moral obligations, not just what those obligations are.
People focus on the savage hatreds of the latter cases, but it's important to understand how they followed logically from the "lofty ideals" of the former. Every example of Nazi denigration of non-Aryans was simply the consequence of the valorization of Aryans.
This helps answer a question which has occupied historians, psychologists, sociologists, and just regular people: how were the Nazis able to induce enough hatred of Jews and others to get people to kill them in large numbers? Whatever happened to these Christians' belief in the sanctity of life? Although the Nazis always taught hatred, their early focus was more on the lofty ideals.
It isn't hard to get people to accept the belief that they are special, that they are better than others, that they deserve special privileges, and that they belong to a group that spans space and time, creating a unique community that deserves aggressive protection. With that in place, the demonization of Jews and others could lead readily to mass murder; indeed, making the Jews social pariahs was inevitable by that point.
The Nazi Conscience, by Claudia Koonz
It's easy to attack the Nazis for teaching that Jews are inferior, but we need to look first at their positive moral teachings that Aryans and Christians were superior. It is easy to attack the Nazis as anti-Jewish, anti-modern, anti-liberal, and anti-democratic, but the Nazis combined all their attacks on these things with the positive promotion of something they believed was superior. It's important to remember that no one thinks of themselves as evil; even the worst people are convinced they are working for justice and morality in their own way. Hitler and the Nazis were no different.
No criticisms, then, will be successful unless we can address the ways in which the Nazis, and Adolf Hitler in particular, saw themselves as promoters and practitioners of traditional German, religious, and Christian virtue. It should also cause us to take a step back and be more skeptical of our own professions of morality and virtue. If the Nazis could be convinced that they were creating a more virtuous and ethical society, we can't ignore the possibility that we might be mistaken in some ways as well.
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