Obedience in the Holocaust - 2087 Words

The Holocaust is known as one of the most devastating, or perhaps even the most devastating incident in human history. On paper, the dizzying statistics are hard to believe. The mass executions, the terrible conditions, the ruthlessness, and the passivity of the majority of witnesses to the traumatic events all seem like a giant, twisted story blown out of proportion to scare children. But the stories are true, the terror really happened, and ordinary citizens were convinced into doing savage deeds against innocent people. How, one must ask? How could anyone be so pitiless towards their neighbors, their friends? In a time of desperation, when a country was on its knees to the rest of the world, one man not only united Germans against a†¦show more content†¦I asked Karl Boem-Tettelbach how it was possible in the 1930s that someone could respect Hitler and what he was doing for Germany when Jews were forced to lose their jobs and leave the country. In his reply spoke, I believ e, for millions of other Germans: That never came up. Everybody thought the same, that you were in a big team and you didnt separate from the group. You were infected. That explains it a bit. (2) And as for actual officers, during the Nuremberg Trials, a Commandant named Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess had this to say of his indifference, Dont you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things; it never even occurred to us. And besides it was something already taken for granted that the Jews were to blame for everythingÂ….It was not just newspapers like Sturmer but it was everything we heard. Even our military and ideological training took for granted that we had to protect Germany from the JewsÂ….We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking that the thought of disobeying an order would never have occurred to anybody. (3) So there is a delicate balance between conscious and unconscious actions of every individual of Nazi Germany. The majority was bewi tched by the charismatic Hitler who not only gave them a reason as to why they were suffering with ubiquitous propaganda, but also promised to strengthen Germany until she was beyond restored. (4) For some it was an underlying hatred that had finally found a vent. ForShow MoreRelatedThe Effect Of Obedience During The Holocaust1599 Words   |  7 PagesThe Effects of Obedience Often, researchers wonder why obedience has such a strong effect. Some researchers say that obedience is a conscious thing; however, some researchers also say that obedience comes from the fear of authority figures. What exactly does obedience and authority mean? Obedience is â€Å"compliance with that which is required by authority; subjection to rightful restraint or control.† (Obedience, 2003) Authority is â€Å"a legal or rightful power; a right to command or to act; powerRead MoreReview Of Stanley Milgram s Obedience Essay1620 Words   |  7 Pageseach authored a review of Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience experiments. In Milgram’s experiments, he observed the extent of subjects obedience to authority when an experimenter commanded them to deliver possibly harmful electric shocks to another person. According to Milgram, an alarming amount of subjects willingly proceeded to the highest voltage shock in the experiment. In Baumrind s†¯Review of S tanley Milgram s Experiments on Obedience, she attempts to disprove and refute Milgram s experimentsRead MoreComparative Analysis Of Stanley Milgrams The Perils Of Obedience1461 Words   |  6 PagesComparative Analysis The purpose of Stanley Milgram writing his â€Å"The Perils of Obedience,† is to show to what extent an individual would contradict his/her moral convictions because of the orders of an authority figure (Milgram 78). He constructed an experiment wherein an experimenter instructs a naà ¯ve subject to inflict a series of shocks of increasing voltage on a protesting actor. Contrary to Milgram’s expectations, about sixty percent of the subjects administered the highest voltage shock. (MilgramRead MoreMilgram s Experiments On Obedience By Ian Parker955 Words   |  4 Pagesexperiment was eye-opening, but others have also stated that his experiment verified nothing about obedience. As the author of the article Obedience, Ian Parker critiques Milgram s experiment claiming that it had its faults; for example, his conclusions failed to prove his theory on the occurrence of the Holocaust (Parker 102). With his multiple sources, Parker validates his statements about the Holocau st, and as well as the unethical treatment Milgram s subjects received after the experiment, abandoningRead MoreThe Tragedy Of The Holocaust945 Words   |  4 Pageson Paris, to the natural disasters in Haiti; there have been a variety of tragic events that have occurred throughout history across the world. Perhaps one main tragedy that leaves people feeling baffled is the Holocaust. Eric Lichtblau described the Holocaust in his article, The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking, as a genocide in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its associates killed approximately six million Jewish people because the Nazis believed that exterminating the Jewish people was justifiedRead MoreThe Experiments Conducted By Stanley Milgram s The Perils Of Obedience1039 Words   |  5 Pagesexperiments took place at Yale University, and tested subjects on obedience to authority. While reading Stanly Milgram’s â€Å"The Perils of Obedience† the topic of authority to obedience is dis cussed by Milgram stating: â€Å"Obedience is one of the most basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to† (691). Submission to authority is not a new concept, but with the Milgram experiments it has been given a new insight to Obedience to authority. Milgram was inspired to conduct the experimentsRead MoreA Brief Summary of Milgrams Seminal Research on Obedience to Authority1016 Words   |  5 Pagesintentional mistreatment of others (Berkowitz, 1999). Because of the fields situationistic perspective emphasizing the individuals susceptibility to the power of the immediate situation, social psychologists generally view the fairly high levels of obedience to authority displayed in Milgrams classic experiment as the paradigmatic example of evil behavior (Berkowitz, 1999). Reading about the work of Ross and Nisbett, 1991 (as cited in Berkowitz, 1999, p. 247) stated that â€Å"social psychologists, byRead MoreMilgram Experiment : What Was The Inten t?1571 Words   |  7 Pagespunishment on people’s ability to learn. The Milgram experiment helps psychologists and sociologists explain the reasoning behind knowingly conflicting pain for a certain outcome. Milgram contributed path-breaking experiments towards the research between obedience to authority. He furthered knowledge in social networks and urban psychology. Stanley Milgram was born and raised in New York City, where he graduated high school and then later graduating from Queens College. He advanced his education at HarvardRead MoreMilgram Experiment : What Was The Intent?1573 Words   |  7 Pagespunishment on people’s ability to learn. The Milgram experiment helps psychologists and sociologists explain the reasoning behind knowingly conflicting pain for a certain outcome. Milgram contributed path-breaking experiments towards the research between obedience to authority. He furthered knowledge in social networks and urban psychology. Stanley Milgram was born and raised in New York City, where he graduated high school and then later graduating from Queens College. He advanced his education at HarvardRead MoreThe Levels Of Obedience1224 Words   |  5 PagesDuring the Holocaust, millions of Jews were murdered. One specific person did not cause these deaths, because there was a division of labor. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi organizer of these mass murders, never saw the direct effects of the genocide he was orchestrating. After the Holo-caust, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to study the levels of obedience to authority; he used his experiment to find where evil resided in people and to discover the cause of the Holo-caust. Some people found his findings