Profesionals executioners: Höss, Stroop y Stangl. Comparative analysis of the Holocaust perpetrators by them owns words

Abstract

This paper is a comparative study on Holocaust perpetrators. After a brief introduction about the nazi phenomenon in context, three cases of their protagonists are analyzed: Rudolf Höss, Jürgen Stroop and Franz Stangl; commander of the Auschwitz death camp, responsible for the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and the commander of the Treblinka death camp respectively. The Höss case is studied taking as a source his autobiography , while the remaining two from interviews and investigations of Kazimierz Moczarski and Gitta Sereny . Hoess , Stangl and Stroop were convicted for the deaths of 1,100,000 , between 750.00 and 900.00 and 350,000 people respectively . In this sense a premise of this work is that none of them can be considered ordinary man or ordinary person; on the contrary following Raul Hilberg they are identified as fully impregnated with the subject worldview and ideology of National Socialism and SS from a frame of reference prior aggressive and violent were eventually becoming mass murderers. As Gustavo Cosacov holds these individuals would own a " malignant or inverted holiness " that had replaced his Christian - Western ethical and moral values; allowing them to systematically commit crimes. Although the issue of the perpetrators has been less addressed than victims, in the historiographical field there are strong contributions. Suffice appoint Christopher Browning, Peter Longerich or Raul Hilberg to explain the current research to which this text recognizes and aspires. In this sense, the objective of the following pages first is to describe and explain some of the historical, psychological and sociological mechanisms that produce perpetrators of serial murders of people as far apart as unknown; as well as decipher their frame of reference. For this a critical review of the historical sources in the light of multiple social disciplines will be done, analyzing his speeches, his arguments, trying to delineate the wills and motivations of Hoess , Stangl and Stroop. A key concept of this research is " bureaucracy " in the sense of Max Weber. In second place it will reflect on Nazi violence , in the sense of contradictory autotelic violence with respect to liberal social paradigm and the rule of law. In both cases it will be prioritized to recreate and interpret the point of view of the perpetrators. Looking historiographical amplitude, classics as well as recent publications on the subject will be used. It is not seeking to obtain conclusions or absolute answers but to reflect , rethink and compound the protagonists of perhaps the darkest fact of human history