Milgrams Germans are different hypothesis

right well, milgram was a psychologist who wanted to test obediance levels of americans and germans - although the results on americans 65% went to max shock level in electrocuting a stranger - all a set up, suggesting this is not limited to germans, but his original view was that germans had a characteristic that made them more blindly subserviant to authority than other nations. do we think there is any truth in this? is this why the holocaust happened in germany and not in italy? (although obviously italian jews were affected in the slaughter). has anyone read the controversial works of Daniel Goldhagen - Hitler's Willing Executioners - who says the germans were willing to do what other nations would not, what do you think of this?

http://ecourse.amberton.edu/grad/RGS6036E1/Fourd.htm

Reply 1

userunknown

but his original view was that germans had a characteristic that made them more blindly subserviant to authority than other nations. do we think there is any truth in this? is this why the holocaust happened in germany and not in italy?

I don't think there is any truth in this, it's a inherent characteristic that could be in all humans. I think this was to try and ease the German population and probably fitted in quite nicely with the rest of the world; it would be more shocking to think you and your fellow countrymen were capable of such acts. The idea of a german characteristic is in my opinion an attempt to shift the responsibility from the common german person for apathy/involvement on to the leadership of the 3rd Reich, by saying we were only following orders, so it's an attempt to ease the conscious of the national psyché.
If you define environmentally conditioning someone to take part in acts of genocide as inherent part of a national psyché then I guess there is some truth.
Many Germans were appalled by what happened/ or what was happening within the ranks of Waffen SS (I think Erwin Rommel would be a classic example of this), and choose to turn a blind eye or distance themselves. The really shocking part was that they did it on an industrial level, with what can only be classed as factories of death, rather than the chaos of the mob mentality, seen most recently in the Rwandian genocide.
The haulocaust isn't the only attrocity in human history rather a link in the long list of examples of man's inhumanity to man, which undoubtly a fair few different nations have in their history.

Reply 2

Weejimmie

1

Read King Henry V. There the soldiers maintain that it isn't their fault; they are just obeying orders. So presumably it's as much a mediaeval English as a German characteristic. What about stalin's executioners? Pol Pot's? Mao's?...

Reply 3

H&E

3

Goldhagen's book is a prejudiced nonesense. He bases his analysis of the behaviour of a nation over 12 years on, IIRC, the behaviour of three small units. If he wasn't working on such a controversial subejct, and didn't stand to make so much capital out of it, it would've failed as PhD thesis.

Reply 4

toiletwall

it may true that there is a much more militaristic authoritarian tradition prevalent in german society than in others, many people attributing this to the failure of the first world war etc, but surely if the germans used blind obediance as an excuse, the only real option is to believe the slaughter was just in which case the means - the horror of Auschwitz and all those other places - justified the ends

Reply 5

Lirael Abhorsen

OP

1

H&E

Goldhagen's book is a prejudiced nonesense. He bases his analysis of the behaviour of a nation over 12 years on, IIRC, the behaviour of three small units. If he wasn't working on such a controversial subejct, and didn't stand to make so much capital out of it, it would've failed as PhD thesis.

i don't believe this for a moment, the book whilst being controversial and obviously coloured by goldhagen's father's experiences in Auschwitz, yet i think it is clear this is a very personal work for goldhagen and i fail to see how he would have done it purely for financial gain. in my view the book has some fairly convincing and powerful arguments for the germans as willing.. not only did it succeed as a PhD thesis but it won an acclaimed award.. goldhagen is a gifted scholar and whilst his interpretation is rather extreme i do not think we should write it off..

Reply 6

H&E

3

I meant as a work of scholarship. How you view it as a piece of literature is subjective, of course.

I didn't say he did it for financial gain, btw.

Reply 7

cottonmouth

10

i studied this in psych.milgrams experiment was repeated in an american uni, and the results were still similar- massive levels of obedience.they were all "prodded" to carry on shocking, and it's came to light that a lot of people actually knew they werent going to be electrocuting the confederate, and so purposely cocked up the tests- even pretending to faint from the schock!

Reply 8

Lirael Abhorsen

OP

1

cottonmouth

i studied this in psych.milgrams experiment was repeated in an american uni, and the results were still similar- massive levels of obedience.they were all "prodded" to carry on shocking, and it's came to light that a lot of people actually knew they werent going to be electrocuting the confederate, and so purposely cocked up the tests- even pretending to faint from the schock!

yeah!

same here i studied it AS psychology, fascinating stuff really liked the conformity and social influence.. did you study Zimbardo's prison experiment as well?

Reply 9

Mr Brightside

I think there is a truth in it having studied AS psychology. However, it is no German' s fault, it is merely the culture of the nation etc etc.

Reply 10

Weejimmie

1

cottonmouth

i studied this in psych.milgrams experiment was repeated in an american uni, and the results were still similar- massive levels of obedience.they were all "prodded" to carry on shocking, and it's came to light that a lot of people actually knew they werent going to be electrocuting the confederate, and so purposely cocked up the tests- even pretending to faint from the schock!

Source?
That doesn't seem to have been the case with Milgram's own experiment, however, though- given the publicty it received- it may have been so with later replications.

Milgrams Germans are different hypothesis

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