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WHERE DO AUTHORITARIANS COME FROM?
GEORGE KENNEY INTERVIEWS Robert ALtemeyer, a psychologist at the
University of Manitoba, who has spent decades studying authoritarians:
his key insight, that a small, determined, and well organized minority
is really and truly impervious to reason.
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/10/its_a_mad_mad_mad_milgram_worl.html
LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS
[From Robert Altemeyer's free E-book, The Authoritarians]
ROBERT ALTEMEYER - Battalion 101 had eleven officers and nearly 500
men--nearly all of them from Hamburg. Their commander, Major Wilhelm
Trapp, was a World War I veteran who had risen in the police service
after that war. He was not a member of the S.S., but two of his company
commanders were, and the third was a "Nazi by conviction." The rank and
file were about 40 years old on the average, too old to be drafted into
the Wermacht. They had worked on the docks, driven trucks, and moved
things around warehouses for the most part prior to being drafted.
Although a quarter of them were members of the Nazi Party, they had
grown up before Hitler came to power. They were given basic military
training and in June 1942, sent to Poland.
At first the battalion rounded up Jews in various locations and send
them off to camps and eventual death. . . But on July 11, 1942 Major
Trapp received orders to move his battalion to the town of Jozefow
--which was probably a village much like Anatevka in Fiddler on the
Roof--and after sending the fit Jewish males off to labor camps, to kill
the 1800 Jewish women, children, infirm and elderly who remained.
Trapp was quite distressed by this assignment, and as the order passed
down the chain of command within the battalion of policemen, one of the
junior officers announced he would not take part in the killings. His
platoon was therefore put in charge of moving the Jewish men to the
labor camp.
As the day of execution dawned Trapp assembled his battalion, told them
of their assignment, and then made an extraordinary offer: any of the
older policemen who did not feel up to the task would be excused. One
man stepped forward and was immediately berated by his company
commander. But Major Trapp cut his officer off and took the soldier
under his wing. Seeing this, ten to twelve other men stepped forward.
But the rest of the battalion stayed in their ranks, and were soon moved
out to perform the executions. Major Trapp excused himself from any
direct participation, and the three company commanders organized the
massacre.
The policemen blocked off the Jewish section of the village and set to
work herding the residents to the town square. The old and infirm were
shot in their homes.
Infants and small children were sometimes shot on the spot, but usually
were moved with everyone else to the square. One company of the
battalion was pulled aside and given a quick lesson in how to shoot
someone in the back of the head with a rifle. It then moved to a nearby
wooded area and awaited the victims to be brought to them in trucks.
When the trucks were unloaded the executioners were paired off, face to
face, with their individual victims. They marched the Jews further into
the woods, made them kneel down, and shot them. The killings continued
all day without interruption, but the pace was slow so Major Trapp
ordered a second company into the woods to speed up the murders. The
leader of one of the platoons in this company gave all his men the
opportunity to do something else, without penalty, but no one took up
his offer.
A number of the policemen however found various ways to avoid becoming
executioners. They hid in the village, or gave themselves extra
"searching" duties.
Some of the shooters asked to be given other assignments, especially
after being given a woman or child to kill, and generally they were
excused. Some of the policemen deliberately missed their target from
point-blank range, while others just "disappeared" into the woods for
the rest of the day. But these were the exceptions.
At least 80 percent of those called upon to murder helpless civilians
did so and continued to do so until all the Jews from Jozefow had been
killed.
Afterwards Major Trapp instructed his men not to talk among themselves
about what they had done. But great resentment and bitterness roiled in
the battalion. The physical act of shooting someone had proved quite
gruesome, with many of the shooters becoming covered with the blood and
brains of their victims. Some of the policemen had killed people they
had known earlier in Hamburg or elsewhere. Almost everyone was angry
about having to kill children.
How could they do it, especially since many of them never individually
had to? For one thing, while the policemen were not usually Nazis, they
had little regard for Jews in general, so that made it easier. For
another, their company commanders made it clear that, whatever Major
Trapp had said and whomever he had protected, they expected their men to
do the job assigned to them.
But judicial interrogations of some 125 of the men conducted in the
1960s indicated that, while no one had to participate, and about a dozen
men demonstrated this by stepping forward, and others later dropped out
in various ways, the great majority stayed in ranks and later killed
whoever was brought to them out of loyalty to those ranks, and to
maintain their standing in their units. "The act of stepping out that
morning in Jazefow meant leaving one's comrades and admitting that one
was too weak or cowardly." "Who would have dared," declared one of the
policemen, "to lose face before the assembled troops?"
http://www.electricpolitics.com/media/docs/authoritarians.pdf
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WHERE DO AUTHORITARIANS COME FROM?
GEORGE KENNEY INTERVIEWS Robert ALtemeyer, a psychologist at the
University of Manitoba, who has spent decades studying authoritarians:
his key insight, that a small, determined, and well organized minority
is really and truly impervious to reason.
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/10/its_a_mad_mad_mad_milgram_worl.html
LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS
[From Robert Altemeyer's free E-book, The Authoritarians]
ROBERT ALTEMEYER - Battalion 101 had eleven officers and nearly 500
men--nearly all of them from Hamburg. Their commander, Major Wilhelm
Trapp, was a World War I veteran who had risen in the police service
after that war. He was not a member of the S.S., but two of his company
commanders were, and the third was a "Nazi by conviction." The rank and
file were about 40 years old on the average, too old to be drafted into
the Wermacht. They had worked on the docks, driven trucks, and moved
things around warehouses for the most part prior to being drafted.
Although a quarter of them were members of the Nazi Party, they had
grown up before Hitler came to power. They were given basic military
training and in June 1942, sent to Poland.
At first the battalion rounded up Jews in various locations and send
them off to camps and eventual death. . . But on July 11, 1942 Major
Trapp received orders to move his battalion to the town of Jozefow
--which was probably a village much like Anatevka in Fiddler on the
Roof--and after sending the fit Jewish males off to labor camps, to kill
the 1800 Jewish women, children, infirm and elderly who remained.
Trapp was quite distressed by this assignment, and as the order passed
down the chain of command within the battalion of policemen, one of the
junior officers announced he would not take part in the killings. His
platoon was therefore put in charge of moving the Jewish men to the
labor camp.
As the day of execution dawned Trapp assembled his battalion, told them
of their assignment, and then made an extraordinary offer: any of the
older policemen who did not feel up to the task would be excused. One
man stepped forward and was immediately berated by his company
commander. But Major Trapp cut his officer off and took the soldier
under his wing. Seeing this, ten to twelve other men stepped forward.
But the rest of the battalion stayed in their ranks, and were soon moved
out to perform the executions. Major Trapp excused himself from any
direct participation, and the three company commanders organized the
massacre.
The policemen blocked off the Jewish section of the village and set to
work herding the residents to the town square. The old and infirm were
shot in their homes.
Infants and small children were sometimes shot on the spot, but usually
were moved with everyone else to the square. One company of the
battalion was pulled aside and given a quick lesson in how to shoot
someone in the back of the head with a rifle. It then moved to a nearby
wooded area and awaited the victims to be brought to them in trucks.
When the trucks were unloaded the executioners were paired off, face to
face, with their individual victims. They marched the Jews further into
the woods, made them kneel down, and shot them. The killings continued
all day without interruption, but the pace was slow so Major Trapp
ordered a second company into the woods to speed up the murders. The
leader of one of the platoons in this company gave all his men the
opportunity to do something else, without penalty, but no one took up
his offer.
A number of the policemen however found various ways to avoid becoming
executioners. They hid in the village, or gave themselves extra
"searching" duties.
Some of the shooters asked to be given other assignments, especially
after being given a woman or child to kill, and generally they were
excused. Some of the policemen deliberately missed their target from
point-blank range, while others just "disappeared" into the woods for
the rest of the day. But these were the exceptions.
At least 80 percent of those called upon to murder helpless civilians
did so and continued to do so until all the Jews from Jozefow had been
killed.
Afterwards Major Trapp instructed his men not to talk among themselves
about what they had done. But great resentment and bitterness roiled in
the battalion. The physical act of shooting someone had proved quite
gruesome, with many of the shooters becoming covered with the blood and
brains of their victims. Some of the policemen had killed people they
had known earlier in Hamburg or elsewhere. Almost everyone was angry
about having to kill children.
How could they do it, especially since many of them never individually
had to? For one thing, while the policemen were not usually Nazis, they
had little regard for Jews in general, so that made it easier. For
another, their company commanders made it clear that, whatever Major
Trapp had said and whomever he had protected, they expected their men to
do the job assigned to them.
But judicial interrogations of some 125 of the men conducted in the
1960s indicated that, while no one had to participate, and about a dozen
men demonstrated this by stepping forward, and others later dropped out
in various ways, the great majority stayed in ranks and later killed
whoever was brought to them out of loyalty to those ranks, and to
maintain their standing in their units. "The act of stepping out that
morning in Jazefow meant leaving one's comrades and admitting that one
was too weak or cowardly." "Who would have dared," declared one of the
policemen, "to lose face before the assembled troops?"
http://www.electricpolitics.com/media/docs/authoritarians.pdf
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