Routine bureaucratic procedures, not zealotry, enabled the Holocaust’s scale.
Evidence
The “banality of evil” thesis also finds support in the writings of Hilberg (1980a). Hilberg has pointed out that the Nazis’ success in carrying out their destructive plans on such a massive scale was made possible by countless bureaucrats and agencies applying their practiced skills and standard proce dures to the task at hand. Among the examples he mentions is the SS being billed by the German railroad for each Jewish deportee it transported. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 612
Categorization
- SHARE: The SS being invoiced per deportee by the German railroad is the kind of grotesque bureaucratic detail worth sending to someone interested in the machinery of genocide.
- XREF: connects to: The Holocaust exemplifies modern bureaucratic rationality, not a rupture from it. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 258; The Holocaust exemplifies modern bureaucratic rationality rather than an anomaly; Extermination was chosen through routine bureaucratic procedures, not fanatic ideology. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 80 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Extermination was chosen through routine bureaucratic procedures, not fanatic ideology.
#corroborates(1.00) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 80 - The Holocaust exemplifies modern bureaucratic rationality, not a rupture from it.
#corroborates(0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 258 - The Holocaust exemplifies modern bureaucratic rationality rather than an anomaly
#corroborates(0.95) - The Holocaust exemplifies modern bureaucratic rationality applied to maximum-efficiency ends.
#corroborates(0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 425 - Most genocide is committed by ordinary people in banal bureaucratic roles, not psychopaths.
#corroborates(0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 150 - The Holocaust was a product of modernity, not pre-modern barbarity.
#corroborates(0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 82 - Bureaucratic ‘doing’ orientation enables genocide without personal hatred of victims.
#expands(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1809 - The Holocaust’s methods emerged from expert judgments on feasibility, not from Hitler’s orders.
#expands(0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 79