There is a fascinating new twist for historians interested in German culture during the Second World War.
When German historian Sönke Neitzel ran across a bundle of documents in Britain’s National Archives in 2001, he could hardly believe his eyes: He had found transcripts of conversations between German soldiers secretly recorded while they were being held as prisoners of war during World War II. These were private conversations between soldiers who didn’t know that a third party was listening to and transcribing their every word.
Their British and American captors had hoped these conversations would provide them with militarily useful information. But they learned little about weapons depots or secret weapons. Most of what the transcripts reveal is what everyday life is like for the foot soldiers in a war, as they fight, kill, and die.
“I’ve developed the need to throw bombs,” reads one passage. “It sends tingles up your spine, it’s an awesome feeling. It’s just as good as shooting someone.”
I am curious if any poetry was found in these transcripts. So far I have not found any mention of it.
The real twist in this story comes when the historian and a psychoanalyst try to portray all war as equally criminal due to the requirement to kill.
According to Neitel and Welzer, there were without a doubt some committed Nazis among German soldiers during World War II, whose convictions told them that killing Jews was the right thing to do. But these, they say, were in the minority.
They also argue that the acts of violence committed under the Nazi regime were no more violent than those committed anywhere else. They believe that an ideology, such as Nazism is not the biggest factor that leads to atrocities. Instead, they say, it is a military values system that turns men into murderers.
It sounds like an anti-war argument. Regardless of motive, it fails a simple philosophy sniff test.
First of all, they use the term “minority” to call out “committed Nazis” so they obviously use some sort of criteria to distinguish their values from other soldiers. This alone proves that not all soldiers are equal-minded in war. From there it is just a matter of finding the right test pattern to identify exceptions to the rule.
Second, they say an ideology is separate and distinct from a military values system. They equate the latter to a job. While it is tempting to accept this analogy, and think of soldiers simply as professional killers, that would be an overly simplistic view of management ethics.
Take butchers, for example. Kosher butchers, Halal butchers…they too are professional killers but their ideology and their value system are not so easily separated. They use concepts and definitions of humane killing. Remove the religious foundation and replace it with health codes or even family traditions and you still will find ideology mixed with values and regulated by management.
Third, military values systems are not all historically equal. Historic comparisons often bring up stark differences in treatment of prisoners, to name one obvious example. The British definitely did not have the most humane military value system in their conflicts but the fact that we can differentiate them at all proves the point.
So Neitel and Welzer can claim that all killing in war is equally criminal, but that seems to me to be a hypothesis built upon their own views and personal definition(s) of atrocity. Others may approach the topic with the philosophy of finding the differences in self-defense versus aggression, for example.
And I suspect that German soldiers serving in Afghanistan today probably resent being linked to the military values system under Nazi rule. Military values across different eras have some things in common but that does not make them equal.