Soldiers Dilemma

[Nazgul]

The Holocaust is often discussed through the lens of victims and perpetrators, and rightly so — the suffering inflicted upon Jews, Romani people, and other targeted groups was immense and unspeakable. Yet, there is another dimension that is rarely examined: the human experience of the SS themselves. Many of them were competent, disciplined, and even morally capable in other contexts, but they were trapped within a system that stripped away autonomy, compressed choice, and normalized atrocity. They were caught in a Hobson’s choice: obey or perish.

This was not only a campaign of systematic destruction but a war of annihilation that overwhelmed any sense of moral compass. The crimes were horrific and inexcusable from all sides, and the Jews and other targeted groups were caught up in this titanic struggle. Recognizing the moral and psychological pressures that constrained the perpetrators allows a fuller understanding of how such a catastrophe could occur. Systems of power can warp human agency, turning capable, even “good” people into instruments of destruction. The tragedy is twofold: the victims suffered immeasurably, and the perpetrators’ own moral selves were crushed by circumstance.

Perhaps if this complexity were more widely acknowledged, those who question or misinterpret aspects of history would have less room to do so. Skeptical interpretations often thrive on overly simplified, polarized narratives: perpetrators are evil, victims are pure, and anything in between is ignored. By understanding that human beings on both sides were constrained, coerced, or morally compromised, the historical reality becomes more vivid, nuanced, and undeniable. Respecting all victims — those who were slaughtered and those whose humanity was subsumed by the system — is not a moral equalization; it is an honest reflection on the complexity of human responsibility under extreme conditions.

Ultimately, this perspective reinforces why personal sovereignty, moral autonomy, and ethical responsibility are essential. They are fragile, rare, and easily eroded — yet when preserved, they are the thin line that protects both the self and the world from catastrophe.

[HansHill]

Nazgul I really like you and your posts. However I find this to be subversive. I won’t comment at length just yet as I’m sure you’ll reply with some counterpoints, some of which may be valid and if so i can in turn reply, but for now just to lay out why I feel posts like this are subversive:

- Removal of civil liberties granted by Enlightenment values is not “immeasurable suffering”

- Personal sovereignty < Group sovereignty. I would have expected a self-described National Socialist to understand this.

- Wartime casualties are not specific to “the Holocaust” and the description of these as becoming “normalized atrocity” applies much more to WW2 as a whole, and even then is not specific to WW2. Arguably WW1 “normalized atrocity” in a way that had never been matched since. And certainly many other wars since.

- What “crimes were horrific and inexcusable from all sides” specifically? Are you still talking about The Holocaust? Do you mean starvation? The only crime I think you can mean here is the removal of civil liberties, see point 1.

- The “soldiers’ dilemma” is indeed a fascinating tug of war that plays within the minds and hearts of men. The thin line between civilisation vs barbarism, us vs them, good vs evil, live vs die, survival vs extinction. All of this is a part of the human condition, has been written about since the time of Homer, and I’m finding very little if anything in this that speaks to “the Holocaust” in this.

- The juxtaposition of “soldier” vs “partisan” is stark here. In the West, we commonly understand “soldier” to be heroic, stoic and courageous. Or at least we did. Likewise, we can view “Partisan”, or more specifically, specific partisan actions, as cowardly, repulsive, and subversive. From the specific perspective of an SS man, the position here is clear. Any ambiguity melts away.

- "Perhaps if this complexity were more widely acknowledged" There is irony here, because its for reasons such as the above post, that this has not been the case in the Western post-Nuremberg Liberal consensus.

The logic goes:

Nazi = Universal Bad
Why? Becase
Jew = Universal Victim
SS = Nazi, therefore
SS = Bad

I understand you posted this in the WW2 forum, however you seem to be implying the tragedy of WW2 was a “Holocaust” issue that somehow can be applied to the Jews, and that the SS were in some way culpable

TL:DR OP is recounting the events of WW2, applying them to The Holocaust in ways that are unjustified and subversive.

[Stubble]

Opa was a good man.

I was looking for a different interview (an SS Man who'd been sent east in Barbarossa and was sent to france after the Normandy landings) but, found this one instead;



We can agree that dispossession and internment are not ideal, but we can't even call that uniquely German. The allies did the same roundups on their populations of Japanese, Germans, Italians etc.

War is a nasty business and hardly ever pleasant. That said, the SS fought honorably and with distinction. Unless I'm mistaken their KDR was not exceeded until 'Operation Desert Storm' meaning they were extremely effective soldiers.

[Nazgul]

Nazgul I really like you and your posts. However I find this to be subversive. I won’t comment at length just yet as I’m sure you’ll reply with some counterpoints, some of which may be valid and if so i can in turn reply, but for now just to lay out why I feel posts like this are subversive:

I think we may be talking past each other, so I’ll try to clarify how I read my original post.

What I took from it wasn’t an attempt to relabel specific historical events or elevate one group’s suffering over another, but an effort to examine a broader and uncomfortable question: how severe circumstances, coercive systems, and sustained pressure can push ordinary people toward immoral acts they might never contemplate in normal conditions. That strikes me as a question about human behaviour under stress, not about excusing outcomes.

A few thoughts in that light:

Discussing how moral agency narrows under extreme pressure isn’t the same as denying responsibility. Understanding how people arrive at bad actions doesn’t absolve those actions; it helps explain how they become possible at scale.

Framing everything purely in terms of ideology (individual versus group sovereignty, liberal versus collectivist values) seems to sidestep the behavioural issue being raised. The argument appears less about what should guide society, and more about what actually happens to human judgement inside rigid, high-stakes systems.

While violence and atrocity recur throughout history, that doesn’t make them interchangeable or morally neutral. Examining recurring patterns—obedience, fear, conformity, career pressure—can help explain why similar failures of judgement reappear across different times and conflicts.

The “soldier’s dilemma” is indeed ancient, but what’s interesting is how institutions can intensify that dilemma to the point where moral choice feels compressed or foreclosed. That tension between agency and pressure is precisely where ethical responsibility becomes hardest—and most important—to examine.

Personal stories about relatives or individual character are human and understandable, but they don’t really settle the larger question of how systems shape behaviour. A person can be experienced as decent in one context and still participate in something deeply wrong in another.

I didn’t read the original post as collapsing moral distinctions or promoting equivalence, but as pushing back against overly simple explanations—especially the comforting idea that only uniquely evil people commit immoral acts. If anything, the implication is the opposite: that ordinary people, placed in certain conditions, are capable of far more moral compromise than we like to admit.

Even if we disagree on conclusions, that seems like a discussion worth having, because it speaks less to past events and more to a recurring vulnerability in human societies.

[slob]

Pretty much sums up the world today?

This was wrote in 1978.