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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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310 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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Upon learning that he had been brought in to replace Ernst
B. who had refused to do selections, Delmotte angrily confronted him, more or
less suggesting he had been hypocritical (“On what grounds do you do [what
you are doing]?”), and insisted, “If you are not going to select,
then I am not going to select either.” B. “didn't feel good about the
whole situation”: “Of course I didn't tell him about my visit to
Mrugowsky.” In speaking of Delmotte’s subsequent resentful withdrawal
from both B. and Weber for not supporting him, B. admitted that there could
have been ways to do so: “I have to say this to my shame.”
In
taking his case to the new commandant, Arthur Liebehenschel (Höss's
temporary successor),* Delmotte encountered a “therapeutic” attitude
(“I can certainly understand this. One must first get used to a new
environment”), according to what Dr. B. was told about the conversation.
Indeed, Liebehenschel — with the probable collaboration of Wirths, with
whom he was on good terms, and the cooperation of Weber — arranged for a
“therapeutic program” that had three specific components.
First, Delmotte was assigned to Mengele’s mentorship. Mengele,
speaking from a similar commitment to SS loyalty and ideology, could convey the
message that even if one thinks that extermination of the Jewish people is
wrong, or is being done in the wrong way (Delmotte, according to Dr. E.,
believed that “Jewish influence” had to be combated but disapproved
of the Auschwitz method), “as an SS man [one was] bound to
participate.” Mengele could also claim that, since prisoners became sick
and died terrible deaths, it was “more humane to select them.” And he
could ultimately fall back on the combined patriotic, nationalistic, racial,
and biomedical argument that, during this wartime emergency, one should do
nothing to interfere with the great goal being sought: “the triumph of the
Germanic race.” Mengele, that is, could appeal to the same SS idealism
that had originally contributed to Delmotte’s refusal, and, within two
weeks, had him selecting.
Second, Weber, as a “good
psychologist,” made highly. unusual arrangements for Delmotte’s wife
to live with him in Auschwitz. She was, according to Dr. B., extraordinary in
both her beauty and her amorality (“no heart, no soul, no nothing”),
her only discernible interest in Auschwitz being two enormous Great Danes she
kept at the Hygienic Institute and constantly fondled. The strong implication
was that Delmotte’s regular sexual access to her made him, as B. put it,
more “quiet.” |
__________
* Höss was, replaced in
November 1943, following the arrest of the Auschwitz political leader
Maximilian Grabner. Grabner was implicated through an SS anticorruption
investigation, originally aimed at profiteering, although it also charged him
with murders' beyond those authorized, notably of Polish prisoners. Grabner's
exit was supported by Dr. Wirths, with whom he had had confrontations over
killings. Although implicated in Grabner's misdeeds, Höss was, in fact,
promoted into the central concentration-camp administration. According to
Langbein, the change was made because the outside world had learned too much of
what was happening at Auschwitz; the change was, then, apparently cosmetic,
although Liebehenschel did carry out some reforms in the direction of fewer
arbitrary procedures and less harsh punishments. Of course the main business of
Auschwitz continued as before.² |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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Page 310 |
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