Re: Discipline and Punish: "Like Sheep to the Slaughter"

I agree with your observation that the leader's perception of his rights to
do as he chooses. It is interesting that your conclusion comes out of
Discipline and Punish, as I have drawn a similar conclusion in my PhD thesis
from ideas embedded in that work.

Lionel

>From: PsycheCulture@xxxxxx
>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Discipline and Punish: "Like Sheep to the Slaughter"
>Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 21:08:05 EST
>
> I have suggested that the violence of the Nazis may be understood by
>focusing on the psychic stance of SUBMISSION. Yet as Matthew Bradley notes,
>studies of the Nazi era often characterize JEWS as submissive.
>Specifically,
>it is suggested that by not sufficiently resisting the actions that led to
>the Holocaust, Jews went "like sheep to the slaughter."
>
> Omer Bartov has compared the Holocaust to World War I, the latter
>being
>an earlier case of "industrial killing" sponsored by the nation-state.
>Indeed, the First World War was an equally bizarre and destructive event
>that
>led to the deaths of millions of human beings.
>
> The expression "like sheep to the slaughter" may be applied to each
>of
>these events. In each case, participants were unaware of their ultimate
>fate.
>The death of young men in the First World War--like the deaths of Holocaust
>victims--may be characterized as the SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS.
>
> Peter Whalen writes about the youthful, idealistic German soldiers
>and
>the image of a locomotive rushing across Germany, headed toward the Front.
>Aboard the train, hundred of young men in new field-gray uniforms were
>gaily
>singing patriotic songs. These young men, like soldiers from every nation
>in
>the First World War, barely knew where they were going or what they were
>getting into.
>
> The mass-slaughter of soldiers began in 1914 and continued until
>1918.
>Two million German soldiers were killed and millions more wounded. Here is
>a
>description of a "battle" at the Somme on August 18, 1916, when German
>troops
>counter-attacked from their positions in Leuze Wood. The war correspondent
>Philip Gibbs saw them advance towards the British trenches, 'shoulder to
>shoulder, like a solid bar'. It was 'sheer suicide', he wrote:
>
>I saw our men get their machine-guns into action, and the right side of the
>living bar frittered away, and then the whole line fell into the scorched
>grass. Another line followed. They were tall men, and did not falter as
>they
>came forward, but it seemed to me they walked like men conscious of going
>to
>death. They died. The simile is outworn, but it is exactly as though some
>invisible scythe had mown them down.
>
>German soldiers died LIKE SHEEP GOING TO THE SLAUGHTER.
>
> Hitler fought in World War I and witnessed the endless slaughter of
>his
>own comrades. He was a fierce nationalist and refused to protest against
>what
>occurred. In MEIN KAMPF he said, "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?"
>
>From the perspective of Hitler and others who embrace the ideology of
>nationalism, the term "submission" as a description of the soldier's
>posture
>would be considered offensive. We do not characterize willingness to die
>for
>one's country as submission to the state. Rather, since it is for the
>sacred
>ideal that one is willing to die, we this psychic stance to be noble and
>beautiful.
>
>What was the Holocaust? The Holocaust was depiction or enactment of
>SUBMISSION TO THE NATION-STATE IN ITS MOST EXTREME OR ABSOLUTE FORM.
>
> In his study of the First World War, Denis Winter notes the
>resemblance
>between soldiers sent to die in the First World War and Jews sent to die in
>the Holocaust. He writes about the experience of German soldiers as they
>were
>transported to battle in cattle cars:
>
>After the stint at base, the railway took the men toward the front line. To
>a
>generation with visual memories of the railway lines running into Hitler's
>death camps, tense faces peering from cattle trucks, there is something
>disconcerting about the imagery of this journey from base camp. The
>soldiers
>went in wagons of the same type, forty of them in each wagon, kit hanging
>from hoods in the roof. Death was a high probability for both generations
>of
>travelers in these cattle trucks.
>
> Hitler understood warfare an opportunity to SACRIFICE ONE'S LIFE FOR
>ONE'S NATION. He noted that in World War I "the most precious blood
>sacrificed itself joyfully." He observed that military service represented
>the duty to "sacrifice the life of the individual, always and forever, at
>all
>times and places." He observed that more than once, "thousands and
>thousands
>of young Germans have stepped forward with resolve to sacrifice their young
>lives freely and joyfully on the altar of the beloved father land."
>
> Hitler knew that he was permitted as "leader of his nation" to send
>millions of German soldiers to their deaths in battle (just as the leaders
>of
>Germany and other nation-states had been allowed send millions of soldiers
>to
>die in the First World War). Indeed, felt that if he succeeded in his
>military efforts, he would go down in history as a great warrior or
>conqueror, notwithstanding the millions who might die.
>
> As the Einsatzgruppen murdered millions of Jews in late 1941 and
>early
>1942 east of the Soviet border, Hitler professed to be undisturbed by the
>extermination of men, women and children: "IF I DON'T MIND SENDING THE PICK
>OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE INTO THE HELL OF WAR WITHOUT REGRET FOR THE SHEDDING
>OF
>VALUABLE GERMANY BLOOD, THEN I HAVE NATURALLY THE RIGHT TO DESTROY MILLIONS
>OF MEN OF INFERIOR RACES WHO INCREASE LIKE VERMIN."
>
> This thought reveals the meaning of the Holocaust. The Final
>Solution
>was undertaken by Hitler based on the logic of warfare. In this bizarre
>enactment, Hitler was posed the following question: IF I HAVE THE RIGHT AS
>NATIONAL LEADER TO SEND GERMAN SOLDIERS (the best human beings) TO THEIR
>DEATHS IN WARFARE, DO I NOT ALSO HAVE THE RIGHT TO SEND JEWS (the worst
>human
>beings) TO THEIR DEATHS?
>
> The Holocaust depicted the nature of warfare and experience of the
>soldier that we deny, namely SUFFERING AND DEATH AS SUBMISSION TO THE
>NATION-STATE, now however stripped of words such as glory, heroism, and
>honor.
>
>With regards,
>
>Richard Koenigsberg
>
>Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D.
>Director, Library of Social Science


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