Administrative killing without emotion made the manipulative character type history’s most dangerous.

Evidence

The conviction that lay behind this was that the truth would be more likely to be found in critical situations that released strong impulses, in an epoch in which the manipulative character type had proved to be the most dangerous one, since such characters finished off their victims using administrative methods, and their sober intelligence and almost complete lack of emotion rendered them merciless (see above, pp. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 640

Categorization

• XREF: Explicitly cross-references the earlier discussion of the ‘manipulative character’ (pp. 421-2); ties also to Studies in Prejudice and the bureaucratic ‘doing’ orientation.
• DEEPTHINKING: The causal link between routinized administration, emotional flatness, and mercilessness is the book’s central theory of modern atrocity, stated in one sweep.