The experience was both collective and deeply personal. One soldier explained, “We were all so shocked that as we sat down together that evening, hardly anything was said about the incident. In particular, no one related what he had personally done."
The soldiers of the 3rd Company demonstrated a wide variety of emotional reactions to this killing. The first and most common reaction was some form of shock. By all accounts, this type of operation was not something to which these men had been exposed, certainly not in the Loire Valley, where they were previously stationed. The men were upset, uneasy, and disgusted; however, the reasons for these reactions are varied and often unclear. For many of the soldiers, what had been done apparently just felt wrong. Some soldiers thought that this was not a job for the army or that the Jewish civilians were not legitimate targets. For others who participated more intimately in the killing, the violent scenes and physical revulsion were traumatic. Some of the men seem to have felt a sense of shame and denial because they did not wish to speak about or acknowledge what they had done.
Yuuuuup. Rates of suicide and alcoholism skyrocketed amongst the German military in the early days of the Holocaust. It was one of the motivators behind the creation of death camps. They needed a process that would allow them to kill large amounts of civilians but didn’t cause mental health problems among the people doing the killing. Or as the Nazis would later figure out, have prisoners carry out different steps of the process so guards only had to threaten people without directly harming anyone. It’s why they used the “I was just following orders” defense at Nuremberg when the war was over.
I suspect it’s also why US troops have higher rates of PTSD and other problems from conflicts like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan compared to WWI and WWII, despite the world wars being more traumatic conflicts.
American Holocaust Museum: Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Ethics, Law, and Leadership
Holy shit i kid you not I thought this was from an Israeli occupation pig.
What the fuck.
Yuuuuup. Rates of suicide and alcoholism skyrocketed amongst the German military in the early days of the Holocaust. It was one of the motivators behind the creation of death camps. They needed a process that would allow them to kill large amounts of civilians but didn’t cause mental health problems among the people doing the killing. Or as the Nazis would later figure out, have prisoners carry out different steps of the process so guards only had to threaten people without directly harming anyone. It’s why they used the “I was just following orders” defense at Nuremberg when the war was over.
I suspect it’s also why US troops have higher rates of PTSD and other problems from conflicts like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan compared to WWI and WWII, despite the world wars being more traumatic conflicts.