some thoughts on the mystery of obedience

I was look at a photo of Hitler shaking hands with a Hitler Youth that's taken in 1945, and i started to think about the reasons why that particular person would risk his life for Hitler. The conclusion that i came up with was simple - because everyone else was doing it. If you gave one person an order, he might not obey; but If you gave it to a group of people , they would all obey. The same goes for the Gestapo, the Einsatzgruppen, ect.

What do you think?

Here's the photo.

 

personally I think it is a bit more complicated thing and no grand rule can be made. Some people were joining the party and Hitler´s "crusade" for ideology, some for the fame and money, some were getting to be brutal the way they wanted etc. the shooting of the subhumans in the east can be seen as a "good example": not everyone took part even if there were many soldiers ordered to do this. The collective pressure did force some to shoot once or twice but then they did not continue. Some didn´t even start in the first place and nobody got punished. Some continued even if they didn´t "like it". Some liked it and continued as long as possible.So obedience per se is not that straight forward a thing, and people have also different reasons for their obedience. Just some ideas I have on my mind about this...

 

Every action a man takes is out of interest and fear. Combinations of the two with differences in proportions give you all the actions you listed above.

I made this thread because i think the most common obedience is an act out of the fear of being different and the desire of being the same as everyone else. But then again, you have other fears/desires attached to your decision making as well; such as the fear of being prosecuted, the fear of GOD, the desire of living in peace, the desire of being a "good" man ect.

Why do some teenagers today dress like 50 cent? Because to them, 50 cent is associated with "coolness" and they have a desire to be "cool".

The devoted Nazi followers had similar fear/inerest as the decision makers of the Third Reich, therefore to them, it was a dream come true.

Your interest and fear change over time as your experience grows. The interest you had as a child is, at least to a degree, not the same interest you still have now.

I think you get the picture.

 

Um, the Hitler Youth was not a 'volunteer' organization. Every young girl and boy had to join it (as mentioned previously in one of the Vets thread, the Vet being a formed Hitler Youth) despite whom their parents affiliated with. Of course, they were then brainwashed and what not and some were truly fanatical, and they weren't risking their life. They were not in the military, after all, and it was really only Hitlers last-ditch effort in Germany that thrust the Hitler Youth into a battling role.

 

I was wondering the same thing Jeff. But Im not surprised .

 

For hundreds of years, "cabin boys" set sail on the seas with adult men. In the Mexican War (1846) the US Marines had a vicious battle with teen boys in a military academy in Monterrey Mexico.

 

Referring to the photo, I remember one of those boys in that line up many years later recounted his belief back then. He believed Hitler would turn the war around and save Germany with there new secret weapons. But due to his indoctrination in the Hitler Youth how much was obedience that was not brain washing? On reflection today he now knows it was all a lie and admitted he was duped by the party.

 

One would always like to think that he/she wouldn’t participate in these actions, that he/she would hold a higher moral standard internally and not cross those ethical boundaries. Dr. Stanley Milgram proved that to be a falsity. Most "normal" people will follow instructions from an authority figure with little if any objection.
Goto this site, and scroll down to the Milgram section, quite illuminating, and before one jumps to the conclusion that those persons had to be depraved or something, read the experiment. And remember that even though it was all play-acting, those involved as the "teachers" were NOT aware of that little detail. Here is a section:

"In 1961, Milgram began a series of experiments that would investigate the effect of authority over free will and examine the "I was just following orders" legal defense. Creating a situation where the guinea pig subject would deliver an increasingly painful electric shock to another person (actually a confederate), Milgram discovered that he could quickly reduce a confident businessman to a "twitching, stuttering wreck...approaching nervous collapse" in less than twenty minutes, simply by telling him that the experiment must continue."

From:

Psychology Experiments - Rosenhan, Milgram, Zimbardo Prison

Now this Milgram experiment was carried on in the US of A, and NOT while the subjects were under the threat of, or actual occupation by a foreign power. It might be the "abnormal" person who didn't "follow the orders" in fact. Brain-washing and peer pressures aside, it seems following orders from superiors or authority figures is a normal human trait. Then factor in that traditionally the German society was highly respectful of authority figures as well, more so than some other societies, but similar to that in Japan.