Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine

Description

Overview: There were eighty of them. They were young, clever and cultivated; they were barely in their thirties when Adolf Hitler came to power. Their university studies in law, economics, linguistics, philosophy and history marked them out for brilliant careers. They chose to join the repressive bodies of the Third Reich, especially the Security Service (SD) and the Nazi Party's elite protection unit, the SS. They theorized and planned the extermination of twenty million individuals of allegedly 'inferior' races. Most of them became members of the paramilitary death squads known as Einsatzgruppen and participated in the slaughter of over a million people. Based on extensive archival research, Christian Ingrao tells the gripping story of these children of the Great War, focusing on the networks of fellow activists, academics and friends in which they moved, studying the way in which they envisaged war and the 'world of enemies' which, in their view, threatened them. The mechanisms of their political commitment are revealed, and their roles in Nazism and mass murder. Thanks to this pioneering study, we can now understand how these men came to believe what they did, and how these beliefs became so destructive. The history of Nazism, shows Ingrao, is also a history of beliefs in which a powerful military machine was interwoven with personal experiences, fervour, anguish, utopia and cruelty. Cover......Page 2 Half Title......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Content......Page 7 Preface......Page 10 Acknowledgements......Page 13 Glossary......Page 17 Part I: The young men of Germany......Page 18 1: A ‘world of enemies’ (I)......Page 20 The outbreak of war......Page 21 The silence of the Akademiker......Page 27 The ‘time of troubles’: an experience of war?......Page 32 2: Constructing networks......Page 35 Places to study......Page 36 Places of association......Page 42 Networks of solidarity......Page 50 3: Activist intellectuals......Page 53 The construction of academic knowledge......Page 54 Knowledge and activism, 1919–1933......Page 61 ‘Combative science’ and SS intellectuals in the Third Reich......Page 65 The shadow of the Great War......Page 70 Part II Joining the Nazis: a commitment......Page 72 4: Being a Nazi......Page 74 The foundations of the doctrine......Page 76 The origins of Nazi fervour: planning a sociobiological re-establishment......Page 86 The appropriation of a system of beliefs......Page 89 5: Entering the SD......Page 95 Whether to enter the Party or not?......Page 96 Towards the SD: Nazi careers......Page 108 Recruitment: a social mechanism of enlistment......Page 113 6: From struggle to control......Page 120 From the ‘Security Department of the SS’ (SD) to the ‘Reich Security Main Office’ (RSHA)......Page 121 A ‘world of enemies’ (II)......Page 131 Control......Page 140 Part III Nazism and violence: the culmination, 1939–1945......Page 150 7: Thinking the east, between utopia and anxiety......Page 153 The curse of Germanic isolation......Page 156 The Nazi project for a sociobiological re-establishment......Page 165 Redevelop and settle: forms of Nazi fervour......Page 169 8: Arguing for war: Nazi rhetoric......Page 173 From the reparative war to the ‘great racial war’......Page 174 From the discourse of security to the discourse of genocide......Page 180 Expressing violence: defensive rhetorics, utopian rhetorics......Page 190 9: Violence in action......Page 198 The experience of violence......Page 199 Demonstrative violence, violence of eradication......Page 209 A transgressive violence......Page 224 Violence as rite of initiation......Page 242 10: SS intellectuals confronting defeat......Page 249 Defeat rendered unreal......Page 251 Finis Germaniae: the return of the old anxiety......Page 258 The denouement......Page 264 11: SS intellectuals on trial......Page 270 Strategies of negation......Page 271 Strategies of evasion......Page 279 Strategies of justifi cation: the Ohlendorf case......Page 286 Conclusion: memory of war, activism and genocide......Page 293 Afterword......Page 306 A piece of research and its context......Page 307 A specifi c conceptual framework......Page 310 Notes......Page 312 Sources and bibliography......Page 375 List of archival collections consulted......Page 376 Printed sources......Page 379 Bibliography......Page 381 Index......Page 403