Nazi control worked by making rational self-interest equal cooperation.

Evidence

Inhuman oppression of the Nazi type leaves admittedly little room for manoeuvre; many of the options people are trained or educated to choose under normal conditions are excluded or beyond their grasp. Under exceptional conditions, conduct is by definition exceptional; but it is exceptional in its overt form and its tangible consequences, not necessarily in the principles of choice and the motives which guide it. Throughout their journey to the final destruction most people, most of the time, were not completely devoid of choice. And where there is choice, there is a chance to behave rationally. And behave rationally most people did. While in full command of the means of coercion, the Nazis saw to it that rationality meant co-operation; that everything the Jews did to serve their own interest brought the Nazi objective somewhat nearer to full success. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 382

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The central paradoxical mechanism of the chapter: oppression does not abolish choice but engineers its content, so that everyday rationality becomes the engine of destruction. Dense, paradigm-level claim about how coercion and freedom interface.
• XREF: connects to: Nazi power structures overlapped deliberately, letting subordinates challenge rival fiefdoms.; Nazi rule inverted reason so that rationality demanded moral consent to crime — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 583; Nazi power operated by crafting a rational make-believe world for victims — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 580 (+10 more)

Related

• Victim cooperation was itself a rational strategy, not a lapse of judgment (similarity 0.84)
• Rational self-interest alone suffices for evil to operate unchallenged. (similarity 0.82)
• Calculated self-interest was reframed as a moral duty by collaborators (similarity 0.82)
• Nazi rule inverted reason so that rationality demanded moral consent to crime (similarity 0.82)
• Nazi power operated by crafting a rational make-believe world for victims (similarity 0.80)
• Victim cooperation made the Holocaust bureaucratically feasible and historically distinctive. (similarity 0.79)
• Nazi power structures overlapped deliberately, letting subordinates challenge rival fiefdoms. (similarity 0.78)
• Exploiting victim rationality was cheaper than controlling them through fear (similarity 0.78)
• Victims’ rational conduct was engineered to serve their own destruction (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Calculated self-interest was reframed as a moral duty by collaborators #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 397
• Hobbesian sanctions produce egoistic macro-motivation to cooperate #corroborates (0.80) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 194
• Groups induce cooperation through sanctions even without trusting their members #corroborates (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 808
• Victim cooperation was itself a rational strategy, not a lapse of judgment #contradicts (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 398
• Opening with cooperation is rational self-interest, not mere morality #exemplifies (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 544
• The Nazi state distributed the sovereign power to kill across all citizens #qualifies (0.72)