Awareness of the Crime vs Fear of Punishment – Selected Psychological Aspects of the Attitudes of Nazi War Criminals

Abstract

Fear was a motivator of the behavior and attitudes of Nazi criminals in almost every aspect of the war effort. It affected rank-and-file soldiers and bystanders, as well as top-level dignitaries, both military and political. Psychoanalytic attempts to explain the motivation of their actions seem to be justified insofar as the nature and scale of the crimes they committed are beyond the workshop, methodology, and research methodology available to the historian. Fear of the possible consequences of the deeds committed, including social stigmatization, reprisals against loved ones, and confrontation with the smoldering remnants of one’s own conscience, prompted the thought of desertion and the decision to permanently obliterate traces, which in the death camps took the form of a premeditated procedure. Fear, however, did not diminish the desire to commit the crime, which accompanied the Nazis to the very end of the war, and was carried out with full fervor and even satisfaction.