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We Don't Know What War Is

WHAT IS WAR?

Germans being shelled in their trenches during the Battle of the Somme.

From: Walter Smoter Frank (2004), Hitler: the Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 9.

In the preliminary bombardment that opened the battle, the British and French fired over 40,000 shells every hour in hopes of pulverizing German defenses. As the shells came raining down on the German positions, the land itself seemed to burst open and flash. As far as the eye could see, fountains of mud, iron and stone filled the sky.

Gas moved across the land and filled the valleys and meadows. Talk was impossible for one could not be understood. Men huddled in their shelters as exploding shells cleared away the earth protecting them. Trenches disappeared. Dugouts vanished. Screams were heard between the explosions. Where men had sat only lumps of flesh and bits of uniform remained.

In the deeper shelters, old and battle-hardened troops peered through their masks at one another and shook their heads. The new recruits with big eyes and quivering bodies were watched with apprehension. Some turned green and began vomiting. Some began sobbing. Those with haunted protruding eyes attempted to dig deeper into the earth with their bare hands.

Some snuggled up to their stronger comrades and looked out from behind a kindly shoulder like frightened little children peeking out from behind their mother’s hip. As the shells tore apart the upper layers of concrete and began working their way toward them, many lost control of their bowels.

The smell of putrefaction mixed with the stench of exploding powder. No one condemned them for in war it was a common thing. After a hundred continuous hours of bombardment, even old soldiers experienced wet foreheads, damp eyes, trembling hands and panting breath as spasms of fear fought their way to the surface. Men felt they were already in their graves waiting only to be closed in.

Germans in their trenches at the Third Battle of Ypres, July 1917.

From: Frank, Walter Smoter (2004). Hitler: The Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 11.

The Germans had been forced, by the water soaked soil in the region, to abandon deep dugouts in favor of small concreted pillboxes which held machine gun crews and twenty to thirty men during heavy shelling. As the men huddled in their shelters the bombardment continued and churned the wet soil.

Between the rounds of exploding shells, the British also began hurling their latest inventions—new deadlier forms of gas and “cylinders of liquid fire.” Although the pillboxes could resist the shells of light artillery, many were engulfed by the early form of napalm or torn to shreds by the heavier shells.

For some of the lucky soldiers, death came quickly. Those in the area of an exploding shell simply vanished. For others, all that was left behind were a few body parts. Most men however, did not die so easily. Men who survived saw friends with half their legs missing running to the next shell hole on splintered stumps. Between bursting shells they saw burning men running in circles. They saw men running with their entails dragging twenty feet behind them.

They saw living men without legs, without arms, without jaws, without faces. They saw opened chests, opened stomachs, opened backs and opened skulls. Clumps of flesh that no longer resembled anything human continued to breath. Mercifully, some men never knew how badly they were hit and died in the middle of a sentence.

Others died slowly as they looked on in shock at a large part of their body laying yards away. Some looked at their deadly wounds in bewilderment and their long faces seemed unable to accept the fact that it had happened to them. Others gasped in horror, looking and longing for help they knew would never come.

DEAD BODIES ON THE BATTLEFIELD, the First World War, September 1916

From: Frank, Walter Smoter (2004). Hitler: The Making of a Fuhrer, Chapter 9.

Because of the speed at which the men were fed to the guns, it often became impossible to bring in the dead for burial. Bodies lay scattered upon the field until the exposed flesh became the same color as their gray-green uniforms. Strange distorted, taut, dead faces, all alike, revealed terror, anguish and suffering.

Gases within swollen dead bellies, hissed, belched and made movements. Bodies and parts of bodies were dumped into shell craters or abandoned trenches where huge gloated rats fattened themselves. Huge shells fell upon the graves and lifted the rotting corpses back onto the earth.

Heads, torsos, limbs, and grotesque fragments lay everywhere scattered among the scorched, torn and pitted earth, rotting and stinking. A miasma of chloroform and putrefaction rose from the piles and shifted back and forth over the living. Old cemeteries were not spared, and the stained bones and skulls of those who had perished centuries before were heaved back upon the earth and scattered among the fresher dead as though to inquire about the progress of leaders.

For a hundred and fifty miles, from the Somme to Verdun, the land was a giant lunar-scape with dying men, open grave-yards, and rotting corpses. At Verdun the Germans advanced about five miles, while on the Somme the British advanced about the same. For this trade the leaders of the opposing countries sustained over 600,000 casualties at Verdun and over 1,000,000 on the Somme.

THINGS HIDDEN SINCE
THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD

Most of us don’t know what war is. We haven’t experienced its concrete reality—the actuality of battle. For most people, war is an abstraction, a geopolitical fantasy. Many relish the idea of warfare: the struggle to defeat the enemy, destroy evil, protect and defend one’s nation, etc. However, whether one is “for” or “against” war, most of us don’t know what war is.

Even those who advocate or believe war is a necessary enterprise prefer not to contemplate the reality of the warrior’s dead or maimed body. We don’t want to look closely at the results of battle: blood and gore. When soldiers return from battle, we don’t want to hear too much about what they’ve experienced. We stay away from hospitals. We don’t want to see—or think about—their wrecked bodies.

The title of Rene Girard’s Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1987) refers to the “scapegoat” mechanism: a concealed dynamic which, he believes, has worked to maintain civilization from its beginnings. Girard writes about the scapegoat as an outside group selected because it is weak or unable to defend itself. He is not familiar with the concept of insider violence: how soldiers function as victims and unifiers of society.

According to Girard, the sacrificial mechanism must be disguised or hidden in order to be effective. We avert our eyes from the victim. S. Mark Helms states that the working of mythical sacrifice in society requires that people “know not what they do.” Sacrificial scapegoating is “most virulent when it is most invisible.” The effectiveness of the mechanism of sacrificial killing depends on “blindness to its workings.” To “avert one’s eyes from the sight of the victim,” Helms says, is that “characteristically human act” that lies at the heart of scapegoating.

When it comes to warfare, we know and don’t know. We know, but don’t want to know too much. History books produce statistics on “casualties.” But we don’t like to contemplate what occurred. We prefer not to speak or write about the fact that our own nation kills and maims people. The truth hurts.

We don’t want to think about the dead and maimed bodies of our own soldiers. Certainly, we don’t want to see these bodies. We keep them out of sight. We don’t want to see body bags containing the dead. We don’t even want to see coffins that contain the remains of dead soldiers. In the midst of sound and fury, we like to keep war hidden. It’s our secret.

The institution of warfare and denial of reality go hand and in hand—they are two sides of the same coin. What is most deeply denied is the reality of what happens to the bodies of soldiers in battle. Historians like to write about geopolitical issues, political machinations, and battle strategy—anything to avoid looking at reality.

Denial of the reality of the death and maiming of soldiers is nothing new. Douglas Haig was the British Commander-in-Chief responsible for the disastrous Battle of the Somme. In his report of August 22, 1919, Features of the War, Haig states that total British casualties in all theaters of war—killed, wounded, missing and prisoners (including native troops)—was approximately three million (3,076,388). He claims that these casualties were “no larger than to be expected.” Yet Haig’s son reports that the General felt that it was his duty to refrain from visiting the casualty stations because “these visits made him physically ill.” French Commander Joseph Joffre said to his Staff: “I mustn’t be shown any more spectacles. I would no longer have the courage to give the order to attack.”

How strange and bizarre that men so close to the battlefield—responsible for the deaths of millions of young men—refused to look at the results of the orders they gave. Yet each of us inhabits a psychic space that is not radically different from that of the Generals. Although war may fascinate as a geopolitical enterprise, we don’t want to know or think about what happens to soldiers in and after the battle.

What is the meaning of this “Germany” that compelled Hitler to embrace—refuse to abandon—war? What is the meaning of a “nation” for any human being? Why do we feel that it would be a “sin to complain” about our country, even though we know it has generated death and destruction? Please leave your reflections and insights below.

HITLER AND WAR

Adolf Hitler—unlike most of us—experienced the reality of battle. He’d been there, witnessing and experiencing the horror: death, maiming and the decaying bodies of young men. In the face of Hitler’s experience of the First World War, it’s reasonable to ask: why did he not become a pacifist? That Hitler did not become a pacifist lies at the heart of this inquiry, raising a broader question: Given our knowledge of the massive destruction that war has caused, why do so many continue to embrace and advocate warfare?

Despite the fact that he was still holding Austrian citizenship, Hitler asked for—and was granted permission—to join the Bavarian Army in August 1914 (at age 25). He was present at a number of major battles, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Third Battle of Ypres (The Battle of Passchendaele).

Hitler was a dispatch runner, taking messages back and forth from the command staff in the rear to the fighting units near the battlefield. Based on what we know, Hitler was a highly competent, dedicated and passionate soldier. On December 14, 1914, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, in 1915 was promoted to Lance Corporal, and on August 18, 1918, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for service since 1914 as a messenger.

Hitler joined the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (known as the List Regiment). After its first engagement near Ypres, 2500 of the 3600 men in Hitler’s regiment were killed, wounded or missing. According to Walter Smoter Frank, the chances that a 1914 volunteer of the List Regiment would be killed or maimed was almost guaranteed. Because of replacements, Hitler’s Regiment suffered 3754 killed before the war ended. For most of the war, Hitler led a charmed life. He was nearly killed on numerous occasions. It was miraculous that he survived. However, during the Battle of the Somme on October 7, 1916, he was seriously wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners’ dugout. He spent two months in a hospital, was sent to Munich after being discharged, then returned to his regiment on March 5, 1917.

Hitler was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack on October 15, 1918, and also lost his voice. He was hospitalized in Pasewalk, and learned of the Armistice (November 11, 1918) marking Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Hitler reacted with bitterness and profound sadness.

What was the psychological meaning of “Germany” for Hitler? Why was this word—the simple evocation of “Germany”—so powerful that it prevented Hitler from complaining about the deaths of thousands of his comrades? What is the nature of our attachment to nations that makes it impossible for us to complain? Please leave your reflections and insights below.

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was one of the largest battles of the First World War. Fought between July 1 and November 1, 1916 near the Somme River in France, it was also one of the bloodiest military battles in history. On the first day alone, the British suffered more than 57,000 casualties, and by the end of the campaign the Allies and Central Powers would lose more than 1.5 million men.

The British planned to attack the German trenches on a 15-mile front on July 1, 1916. To ensure a rapid advance, Allied artillery pounded German lines for a week before the attack. According to Robert Whalen (1984), between June 24 and 29, 1916, some 50,000 French and English gunners (a force the same size as Wellington’s entire army at Waterloo) fired 1,500,000 rounds into German positions near the Somme.

The passages to the right present Walter Smoter Frank’s descriptions of the German experience of trench bombardment, and of a First World War battlefield (1916). It is likely that Adolf Hitler witnessed much of what Frank describes.

A fair amount has been written documenting Hitler’s experience of the First World War. Among the best accounts is an online publication by Walter Smoter Frank, who reconstructs the experience of German troops on the receiving end of a massive artillery barrage—as they waited for the British attack in late June 1916. Hitler was at the Battle of the Somme and experienced first-hand many of the things that Frank describes. Hitler later stated, “I saw men falling around me in thousands. Thus I learned that life is a cruel struggle.”

“IT WOULD BE A SIN TO COMPLAIN”

In Mein Kampf. Hitler relates how he learned about and reacted to Germany’s defeat in the First World War. On November 10, 1918, a pastor came to the hospital in Pasewalk (where Hitler was recovering from his poison gas attack). This “old gentleman,” Hitler reports, told him and his comrades that “we must now end the long war”; that the war had been lost and that Germany was now “throwing ourselves upon the mercy of the victors.”

“Again,” Hitler says, “everything went blank before my eyes. I tottered and groped my way back to the dormitory, threw myself on my bunk, and dug my burning head into my blanket and pillow.” Since “the day when I had stood before my mother’s grave,” Hitler says, “I had not wept.” Hitler’s experience at the end of First World War metamorphosed into a trauma from which he never recovered.

I want to focus here, however, on another aspect of Hitler’s response. Upon learning of Germany’s defeat, Hitler says, “I nearly lost heart for a moment.” He has a flicker of doubt and ambivalence, seems tempted to abandon hope. Hitler bolsters himself, however, remembering his earlier struggles on the battlefield and how he developed “merciless hardness and defiance,” then declares:

“When in the long war years Death snatched so many a dear comrade and friend from our ranks, it would have seemed to me almost a sin to complain—after all, were they not dying for Germany?”

In spite of having witnessed the death and maiming of thousands of his comrades during his four years of fighting, Hitler refuses to complain, indeed declares that it would be a “sin” to do so. It is a sin to complain about the death of his dear comrades and friends because they were “dying for Germany.” Hitler’s attachment to his nation transcends everything that he experienced as a soldier.

WE DON’T KNOW WHAT “COUNTRIES” ARE

I’ve suggested that human beings don’t know what war is. More significantly, we don’t know what “nations” are and why they impact upon us so profoundly. “Countries” are in the background of most historical accounts of war. We don’t often analyze the meaning of nations because we take them for granted. They are always there. We identify so deeply. We possess countries, and countries possess us. We barely conceive of who we are apart from our attachment to our nation with its “national life.”

Hitler is unable to abandon warfare—to become a peace activist—because of his attachment to the nation with which he identifies. Actually, there is no separation between Hitler’s attachment to Germany and his attachment to warfare. Because he refuses to consider abandoning Germany, he refuses to consider abandoning war—despite the massive suffering that he witnessed and experienced.

In light of previous LSS Newsletter issues, one might suggest that Hitler doesn’t complain about the death of comrades and friends because he is committed to an ideology of national sacrifice. We’ve noted that Hitler believes civilization could not exist if human beings were unwilling to die for their countries. Still, why does he imagine that nations require sacrifices?

Explaining this requires that we ascertain what “Germany” meant to Hitler. Indeed, to understand the meaning of warfare we need to know what “countries” mean for anyone. We conceive of nations as real entities existing outside our minds. Of course, countries exist as political and social structures. The question, however, is: What do nations mean to us, psychologically? Why do they play such a powerful role in our psyches—to the extent that we are willing to kill and die in their name, and to forgive them for all the suffering they cause.

It is difficult to think of “nations” and not to think of actual entities possessing objective existence. However, whatever reality nations possess, they function as mental representations. Nations exist within our minds and play a profound role in the psychic economy of each and every one of us.

Killing is Sacrificing

VIRTUE = WILLINGNESS
TO SACRIFICE ONE’S LIFE

Willingness to sacrifice — die for one’s country — constituted a philosophy of life for Hitler. Dying for Germany was the supreme virtue — and essence of National Socialism. Beginning with this understanding, it is not difficult to follow the “logic” of everything that happened after.

If virtue or goodness for Hitler was the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s nation, the absence of virtue (or evil) was unwillingness to sacrifice one’s life. Hitler revered, honored and glorified the German soldier who volunteered for military service and risked his life.

WHY DO GOOD MEN DIE,
WHILE THE WORST SURVIVE?

On the other hand, what about those who did not serve in the military — who sought to “shirk” their duty? Hitler became deeply disturbed — obsessed — with the idea that some Germans had avoided fighting in the First World War. Hitler pondered the question: “Why had the best (most courageous and patriotic) men died in the war, whereas the worst (most cowardly, unpatriotic) survived?” Why is virtue punished while lack of virtue is rewarded?

In hundreds of thousands of cases, Hitler explained in Mein Kampf, it was always a matter of “volunteers to the front, voluntary patrols, voluntary dispatch runners, volunteers for telephone detachments, volunteers for bridge passages, volunteers for U-boats, volunteers for airplanes, volunteers for storm battalions, etc.”

During four-and-a-half years, “again and again, again volunteers on a thousand occasions.” It was men who were filled with an “ardent love for their country,” urged by a “lofty sense of duty” who always answered the call for volunteers.

Some, however, sought to avoid military duty. These men, Hitler believed, lacked courage and a sense of duty. Hitler summarized his view in Mein Kampf:

One extreme of the population, which was constituted of the best elements, had given a typical example of its heroism and had sacrificed itself almost to a man. The other extreme, which was constituted of the worst elements of the population, had preserved itself almost intact, throughout taking advantage of absurd laws and also because the authorities failed to enforce certain articles of the military code.

The best, most heroic elements of the population had “sacrificed itself almost to a man.” Whereas the worst elements of the population — taking advantage of “absurd laws” — had “preserved itself almost intact.” The best men had died, whereas the worst had survived: This is what Hitler believed he had learned after four-and-a-half years of fighting in the First World War.

THE BEST MATERIAL IS
BEING “THINNED OUT”

Hitler addresses the issue again:

While for four-and-a-half years our best human material was being thinned to an exceptional degree on the battlefields, our worst people wonderfully succeeded in saving themselves. For each hero who made the supreme sacrifice and ascended the steps of Valhalla, there was a shirker who cunningly dodged death on the pretense of being engaged in business that was more or less useful at home.

Since the best “human material” was being “thinned out,” this kind of human material steadily “grew scarcer and scarcer.” Those soldiers who did not actually die were “maimed in the fight” or gradually had to “join the ranks of the crippled” because of the wounds they received.

The 400 thousand who died or were permanently maimed on the battlefields “could not be replaced,” Hitler explained. Their loss was “far more than merely numerical.” With their death, the scales — already “too lightly weighed at the end which represented the best human qualities” — now became “heavier on the other end with vulgar elements of infamy and cowardice.” In short, there was an “increase in the elements that constituted the worst extreme of the population.”

KILL THOSE WHO DO NOT SACRIFICE THEIR LIVES

It was not possible to do anything about the men who had already died. On the other hand, it would be possible to take measures in the future against elements of the population that had not sacrificed their lives. National Socialism would specialize in killing people who were unwilling (or unable) to sacrifice their lives. Nazism revolved around “thinning out” classes of people defined as the “worst elements.”

The sacrifice of German soldiers went without saying. This was “standard operating procedure.” This is what nations do: sacrifice young men in battle. Hitler initiated the Second World War in order to continue the sacrificial dying that had ceased when the First World War ended.

In the future, Hitler would expand the categories of people that would be required to die. Why should only soldiers be compelled to sacrifice their lives? Once in power, Hitler would require other kinds of people to forfeit their lives: defective children, mental patients, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and finally German citizens. They too would be compelled to “die for Germany”.

People commonly focus on “aggression” or killing as the essence of political violence. However, what is the purpose of aggression? Is killing a demented form of entertainment? On the contrary, political violence contains a profound psychic and social meaning. Nations kill in order to produce sacrificial victims.

Some people sacrifice their lives voluntarily. These types of people are called “heroes.” Other kinds of people may be compelled to forfeit their lives. These people are involuntary sacrifices. Once the Nazis took power, Hitler sought to make certain that no one would be exempt. Everyone would be required to die for Germany.

Excerpts from TO DIE FOR GERMANY

HEROIC DEATH AS A
PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

In November 1917, the youthful idealist Walter Flex wrote, “We died for Germany’s glory. Flower, Germany, as garland of death to us!” His benediction glorified all of the sacrificial dead of the war. During the Great War, propagandists and poets alike joined hands in exalting the blood sacrifice of the youth of Germany, thus transforming carnage into ethereal national revelation. Heroic death in war became a philosophy of life.

BLOOD SACRIFICE
CREATES THE NATION

Eleven thousand young men lie buried in the student cemetery at Langemarck, testifying to the depravity of war. Yet through propaganda and poetry, their graves were rendered sacred shrines. They had not died; instead, their souls had passed the earthly boundaries and had been transfigured. Their blood sacrifice had guaranteed the nation’s future.

THE STREAM OF
GERMAN BLOOD IS ETERNAL

Rudolf Hess:

The stream of blood which for Germany is eternal — the sacrifice of German men for their Volk is eternal — therefore Germany will also be eternal.

INDIVIDUALS DIE,
BUT THE VOLK LIVES ON

Sacrifice for the German people was not to be feared. “Death holds no sting for us,” Himmler affirmed, because individuals die, while the Volk lives on.” Because the men of the Germanic SS were more concerned about the future of the Volk than about their individual destinies, members would “willingly and bravely seek death, wherever that is necessary.”

GERMANY IS SACRIFICE

In his last letter to his mother, written before his death on the western front in 1940, Hitler Youth officer Ernst Nielsen tried to prepare her for the loss of her son. When the news arrived, he warned, she was not to grieve; rather, she was to affirm the nobility of the cause:

If I die, mother, you must bear it, and your pride will conquer your pain, because you have the privilege of offering a sacrifice that is what we mean, when we say Germany.

Civilization and Self-Destruction

OBEDIENCE UNTO DEATH

Although most people condemn state violence (even as we view aggression as a normal dimension of political life), still we are proud of our willingness to die and kill in the name of abstract ideals. By virtue of acts of political violence, we express our devotion to ideas and entities that we consider sacred—greater than the self.

Political aggression conveys power, toughness and masculinity. The sound and fury of battle feels significant and gigantic, as if something very important is at stake. Warfare expresses narcissistic grandiosity.

Yet at the heart of the human experience of political violence lies submission or—as it is called—“sacrifice.” Sacrifice represents the will to subordinate the self to something larger than the self. Throughout history, people have sacrificed their lives for gods and nations. Warfare is intimately tied to the will to sacrifice.

The ideology of the Nazi SS-man revolved around “obedience unto death.” Obedience unto death is the most radical form of political submission. The Nazis glorified—gloried in—their willingness to submit. What is the relationship between the will to become obedient unto death, and political violence? How does willingness to die become converted into the desire to kill?

HITLER’S PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE

In Mein Kampf (initially published in 1925 and 1926), Hitler presented a theory of the relationship between the individual and culture. Like Freud, Hitler focused on renunciation as the essence of civilization. Society requires that we give up individual desires in the name—for the sake—of the collective. From the beginning of his political career until its very end, Hitler insisted that the individual must devote his life to the collective. “Sacrifice for Germany” constituted the core of Nazi ideology.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler stated that the capacity for civilization—for “creating and building culture”—arises out of the individual’s willingness to “renounce putting forward his personal opinion and interests” and to “sacrifice both in favor of the large group.” Out of this readiness to subordinate personal interests arises the ability to “establish comprehensive communities.” The state of mind that subordinates the interest of the ego to the conservation of the community, Hitler said, is the “first premise for every truly human community.”

What was special about the “Aryan,” Hitler believed, was the extent of his willingness to sacrifice for the community. The self-sacrificing will to “give one’s personal labor and if necessary one’s own life for others,” Hitler said, was “most strongly developed in the Aryan.” The Aryan was “not greatest in his mental qualities as such,” but in the extent of his willingness to “put all his abilities in the service of the community.”

Hitler sums up his philosophy of culture in the term pflichterfüllung, which means “Not to be self-sufficient but to serve the community.” Hitler distinguishes this posture of service from egoism or selfishness, and says it grows out of idealism, meaning the individual’s capacity to “make sacrifices for the community, his fellow man.” True idealism, Hitler declared in Mein Kampf, is nothing but the “subordination of the interests and life of the individual to the community.”

Hitler’s belief-system, then, focused on the requirement that the individual sacrifice for the large group, or community. Hitler never deviated from this ideology. The violence and terror he brought into being grew out of this ideology: Hitler sought to punish those whom, he imagined, were unwilling to devote their lives to the collective—to sacrifice for the community.

GLORIFICATION OF SACRIFICIAL DEATH

Taking the idea of sacrifice a step further, Hitler believed that the individual should be willing to die for the community. He glorified sacrificial death in warfare. According to Nazi ideology, dying for one’s country was the summum bonum: the greatest or supreme good; the principle from which all other moral values were derived.

The Aryan, Hitler said, willingly subordinates his ego to the life of the community and, “if the hour demands, even sacrifices it.” The idea of military service meant consciousness of the duty to fight for the existence of the German people by sacrificing the life of the individual “always and forever, at all times and places.” Nationalism meant acting with a boundless and all-embracing love for the people “and, if necessary, even to die for it.”

After Nazism and the Holocaust, many people tried to believe that Hitler and his ideology were foreign—radically different from anything that previously existed. This is a classic case of “othering.” In actuality, Hitler’s ideology of sacrifice—the foundation of Nazism—lies at the heart of Western political culture.

We valorize and memorialize the death of soldiers—their willingness to “give their lives” for the nation or community. The ultimate hero, finally, is someone who has “died for his country.” The nation for which a soldier dies may be called Germany, or Great Britain, or France, or the United States of America. In our hearts, the dream remains the same. We idealize and idolize those who have made the “supreme sacrifice.”

What was unique about Hitler was his embrace and glorification of the idea of sacrificial death, and the extent to which he promoted this idea. Writing in Mein Kampf, Hitler stated that more than once, thousands upon thousands of young Germans had stepped forward with “self-sacrificing resolve” to sacrifice their young lives “freely and joyfully on the altar of the beloved fatherland.”

Reflecting on the First World War, Hitler observed that the “young regiments went to their death in Flanders” crying “Deutschland ueber Alles in der Welt” (“Germany above everything in the world”). The most precious blood, Hitler declared, “sacrificed itself joyfully” in the “faith that it was preserving the independence and freedom of the fatherland.” Commenting in Mein Kampf on a memorial for German soldiers that he had visited in 1917, Hitler said: “In the sacred ground the best comrades slumbered, still almost children, who had run to their death with gleaming eyes for the one true fatherland.”

Radical nationalism: “You will love your country, or we will bash your head in”

I’ve been writing about societal slaughter in recent issues of the LSS Newsletter: how millions of people have died in wars and episodes of genocide. But what about the other side of the coin: What is all this dying and killing for? What is the nature of that dynamic that generates slaughter?

I study Hitler—not as an idiosyncratic personality, but as a vehicle toward understanding and revealing the template for societal slaughter. In terms of the ideology Hitler put forth, he was not unusual. What Hitler did was to embrace and promote certain very popular, conventional political ideas—and carry them to a bizarre fulfillment.

John Kennedy (1961) exhorted the American people: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” This is a classic expression of nationalistic ideology: one should be less concerned with the fulfillment of one’s own needs and aspirations, and more concerned with fulfilling the “needs” of one’s country. Nationalism and self-renunciation—sacrifice—go hand in hand.

Hitler explained to the German people: “You are nothing, your nation is everything.” This is a radical expression of the nationalistic ideology contained in JFK’s words. The nation is more significant than the individual. Indeed, according to Hitler, the individual is nothing compared to the nation. Nazism took this proposition—the insignificance of the individual in relationship to one’s nation—and carried it to an extreme conclusion.

The nation, according to Nazi ideology, should become the exclusive object of devotion. Hitler asserted, “We do not want to have any other God, only Germany.” Hitler was a fanatic preacher, whipping up excitement: imploring people to devote their lives to the same god to which he himself had devoted his life.

Hitler proclaimed:

Our future is Germany. Our today is Germany. And our past is Germany. Let us take a vow this morning, at every hour, in each day, to think of Germany, of the nation, of our German people. You cannot be unfaithful to something that has given sense and meaning to your whole existence.

At the core of Nazism was the idea of faith: faith in the German nation and people, and faith in Hitler as the perfect representative or embodiment of Germany.

The terms “obedience” and “obedience to authority”—often used in relation to the Nazi case—are highly misleading, suggesting the mechanical following of orders. Rather, at the core of Nazism was love of Germany and faith in Hitler, which led people to want to carry out orders that the leader issued.

Hitler explained: “Our love towards our people will never falter, and our faith in this Germany of ours is imperishable.” He called Deutschland ueber Alles (“Germany above all”) a profession of faith, which today “fills millions with a greater strength, with that faith which is mightier than any earthly might.” Nationalism for Hitler meant willingness to act with a “boundless, all embracing love for the Volk and, if necessary, to die for it.”

We prefer not to acknowledge the truth of Nazism: that the massive brutality and destruction that this movement generated grew out of love of country, and faith in the leader. To understand Nazism, one must begin by recognizing that one cannot separate these three variables: love, faith and mass murder.

All forms of nationalistic ideology rest upon the identification of the individual with his nation. In order for nationalism to work, one must be willing to connect one’s personal aspirations with the aspirations put forth by one’s nation. One’s personal life has to become bound to national life.

At the core of Nazism was the assertion that there could be no separation between self and nation. Hitler asked the German people to embrace this intimate bond—to acknowledge their profound closeness—dependence—upon Germany:

Our Nation is not just an idea in which you have no part; you yourself support the nation; to it you belong; you cannot separate yourself from it; your life is bound up with the life of your whole people; the nation is not merely the root of your strength, it is the root of your very life.

If I had to crystalize Nazi ideology after studying it for 40 years (see Hitler’s Ideology), I would use two words: “no separation”: thou shalt not be separate from one’s country. Thou shalt not acknowledge the possibility of separation. Hitler was in a rage against separateness.

The idea of Germany, for Hitler, was everything. He refused to contemplate that there could be anything other than Germany. What’s more, he insisted that everyone embrace Germany, proclaiming:

No one person is excepted from the crisis of the Reich. This Volk is but yourselves. There may not be a single person who excludes himself from this joint obligation.

Hitler claimed that one’s Volk and one’s self were one and the same. No one could be “excepted” from the obligation to devote one’s life to Germany. One had to overcome “bourgeois privatism” in order to “unconditionally equate the individual fate and fate of the nation.”

Hitler’s mission as a leader was to get everyone to share his love for and devotion to Germany: to seduce the people to share his passion. He sought national unity: the people as one, united and sharing a common emotion. Nothing was as thrilling to Hitler as the Nuremberg rallies.

Although Hitler felt that he had fulfilled his dream—of uniting the German people under the banner of National Socialism—he often had doubt. Perhaps there were some people who did not share his enthusiasm: who refused to join in.

Our aim is the dictatorship of the whole people, the community. I began to win men to the idea of an eternal national and social ideal—to subordinate one’s own interests to the interest of the whole society. There are, nevertheless, a few incurables who had never understood the happiness of belonging to this great, inspiring community.

Those who did not share Hitler’s enthusiasm—who did not understand the happiness of belonging to the “great, inspiring community”—were the “incurables.” Those who refused to join in were the “disease within the body of the people”: people who refused to love Germany and to join in expressing their devotion.

Loyalty and faith in one’s nation is accompanied by the idea that some human beings are not loyal and do not possess adequate faith. Love of country is not separate from the idea of disloyalty. There are numerous examples of political movements focused on hounding those who are identified as disloyal—not giving full support to the nation and its government.

Those accused of being disloyal to their nation may be called traitors or internal enemies or terrorists. We in the US are quite familiar with how dissenters can be condemned in this way. Nazi Germany was quantitatively, but not qualitatively, different from many other nationalistic cultures.

In Nazi Germany everyone was required to embrace and to love the German nation, and to make enormous sacrifices in her name. Hitler did not allow for the existence of a private sphere—a place within society where people were not obligated to love and devote themselves to the nation.

And this is where violence comes into being. Political violence was directed toward those who were perceived as being insufficiently devoted to Germany. Hitler declared:

“We are fanatic in our love for our people. We can go as loyally as a dog with those who share our sincerity, but we will pursue with fanatic hatred the man who believes that he can play tricks with this love of ours.”

Hitler’s hatred was directed toward those who—he imagined—did not love Germany enough: refused to embrace her “goodness” and the national purpose. Nazi rage was directed toward those who—it seemed—had doubts about Hitler’s capacity to bring about the resurrection of Germany. Perhaps the ideology of Nazism—radical nationalism—might be summed up in the following phrase: “You will love your country—or we will bash your head in.”

Why War?

In 1989, I was on the fourth floor of the Bobst library at NYU. Having read most of the books on Nazism, Hitler and the Holocaust, I drifted across the aisle and started browsing through the volumes on the First World War—and was astonished at what I discovered.

I was astonished—not only by the persistence and magnitude of the slaughter—but by the blasé way historians described what had occurred. It seemed as if mass murder was taken for granted: nothing special. At least the Holocaust evoked shock and bewilderment. But the extermination of 9 million human beings (most of them young men) evoked little amazement.

I began studying the topic more deeply, assuming historians would reveal the causes. What was so significant that could generate such massive slaughter? Of course, historians were able to trace how one event led to another. But why did the slaughter take place? Why was it necessary? Gradually, I realized historians were unable to answer these questions.

Orion and I were reading back issues of the New York Review of Books earlier this week—as a model for Library of Social Science Book Reviews—and came across a terrific article by Jason Epstein. In his review essay, Epstein poses several questions I have been thinking about during the past 25 years.

Reviewing John Keegan’s The First World War, Epstein conveys this great historian’s conclusion: that the nations of Europe (and the world) “had no compelling reason to fight.” Keegan asked: “Why did the states of Europe proceed as if in a dead march and a dialogue of the deaf, to the destruction of their continent and its civilization?” It is this question—and others like it—that we pose in this Newsletter, and through our Websites.

The most profound flaw in the thinking of historians and political scientists is their assumption of rationality. They proceed as if it is possible to identify “real reasons” for mass murder—and for the tendency of nation-states to proceed as if self-extermination was their objective.

Epstein cites a sermon presented by the Bishop of London in 1915, who urged Englishmen to kill Germans…to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill the young men as well the old,…to kill them lest the civilization of the world should itself be killed. As I have said a thousand times, I look upon it as a war for purity…for the principles of Christianity. I look upon everyone who dies in it as a martyr.

The words in this brief passage (that easily could have come out of Hitler’s mouth) reveal several themes that have emerged from my research on collective forms of violence.
Warfare revolves around the idea that it is necessary to kill or destroy the enemy. There is blind passion in the Bishop’s words—he insists it is necessary to “kill Germans,” the “good as well as the bad,” the “young men as well as the old”. Why this belief that it necessary to kill—or kill off—each and every member of another nation or societal group?

Nations and enemies go together. It seems that one requires the other, almost as if nations need enemies in order to energize themselves—to stay alive. The nation’s identity seems to be dependent on its capacity to identify an enemy to hate, revile—and possibly kill.

The Bishop asserts that it is necessary to kill Germans “lest the civilization of the world should itself be killed.” I have found that the idea of “rescuing civilization” is central in generating warfare. War is not about “primitive aggression.” Rather, nations initiate acts of war when they imagine that the future of civilization is at stake.

Somehow, the other civilization (or group) is imagined to threaten the existence of one’s own civilization. This principle applies to contemporary political struggles—as well as the First World War. Warfare arises as a form of morality, or moral righteousness. The enemy Other is imagined to be acting to destroy one’s own society. Violent acts are therefore necessary—required.

Hitler explained, “We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany, we have performed the greatest deed in the world.” If you think about any case of political violence that you have studied or are familiar with, you will probably conclude that Hitler’s statement is applicable. Collective forms of violence are undertaken in the name of a rescue fantasy. “Yes, we are performing acts of inhumane violence. However, if our nation or society is to survive, we have no other choice but to undertake them.”

The Bishop’s war cry, Epstein observes, could have “landed him in an asylum” had he delivered it a year earlier. Warfare, it would appear, renders normal what in other circumstances would be judged insane. Outside the context of war, asking men to get out of trenches and to run into machine gun fire and artillery shells for four years—would be considered a form of insanity.

I worked with a psychiatrist in 1998 developing an all-day seminar on warfare. She was not a historian and was unfamiliar with the First World War. We were sitting on a couch watching Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). When we came to the scene in which soldiers were compelled to get out of their trench and move into no man’s land—in the face of massive shelling (click the link to view the video), she jumped up from the couch and screamed, “It’s crazy. It’s insane.”

This, perhaps, is the normal or natural reaction of a human being who has not been socialized into the historical discourse on the First World War. And yes, what occurred between 1914 and 1918 was insane. However, we don’t like to say this. We shy away from acknowledging that insane forms of behavior are contained within the fabric of civilization.

What’s more, human beings to not seem to be ashamed of their proclivity toward mass murder and self-destruction. Leaders who are responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings often live to a ripe old age. Perhaps we are even proud of our willingness to kill and die for abstract ideas—our sacred ideals. It’s what distinguishes us from other animals.

Can we begin to “bracket” the ideology of warfare—to conceive of this institution as something other than who we are? Post-modernists have deconstructed nearly everything. However, the idea of warfare (and of the nation-state, which generates war) reigns supreme.

It is easy to be “against” war. However, we have yet to pose and answer fundamental questions: Precisely what is warfare? Why do we need it? Why have human beings become so attached to the idea or ideology of warfare? These are questions we seek to answer through our Library of Social Science Newsletter, our Ideologies of War website, and through Library of Social Science Book Reviews.

We may not be ready to conceive of warfare as an institutionalized form of insanity. So let’s say that warfare is like a dream that many people are having at once: a collective fantasy that has been embraced and called “reality.”

We hope you will join us in our project of working to awaken from the nightmare of history.