The Kindly Ones

If you were born in a country or at a time not only when nobody comes to kill your wife and your children, but also nobody comes to ask you to kill the wives and children of others, then render thanks to God and go in peace. But always keep this thought in mind: you might be luckier than I, but you’re not a better person.

I have remained someone who believes that the only things indispensable to human life are air, food, drink and excretion, and the search for truth. The rest is optional.

So what's the most atrocious thing you've seen?" He waved his hand: "Man, of course!

If you ever managed to make me cry, my tears would sear your face.

There were always reasons for what I did. Good reasons or bad reasons, I don’t know, in any case human reasons. Those who kill are humans, just like those who are killed, that’s what’s terrible. You

Blood transmits a propensity for heart diseases; if it also transmits a propensity for treason, no one has ever been able to prove it.

I got back into my car and followed the trucks; at the end of the road, the Polizei unloaded the women and children, who rejoined the men arriving on foot. A number of Jews, as they walked, were singing religious songs; few tried to run away; the ones who did were soon stopped by the cordon or shot down. From the top, you could hear the gun bursts clearly, and the women especially were starting to panic. But there was nothing they could do. The condemned were divided into little groups and a noncom sitting at a table counted them; then our Askaris took them and led them over the brink of the ravine. After each volley, another group left, it went very quickly. I walked around the ravine by the west to join the other officers, who had taken up positions above the north slope. From there, the ravine stretched out in front of me: it must have been some fifty meters wide and maybe thirty meters deep, and went on for several kilometers; the little stream at the bottom ran into the Syrets, which gave its name to the neighborhood. Boards had been placed over this stream so the Jews and their shooters could cross easily; beyond, scattered pretty much everywhere on the bare sides of the ravine, the little white clusters were multiplying. The Ukrainian “packers” dragged their charges to these piles and forced them to lie down over them or next to them; the men from the firing squad then advanced and passed along the rows of people lying down almost naked, shooting each one with a submachine bullet in the neck; there were three firing squads in all. Between the executions some officers inspected the bodies and finished them off with a pistol. To one side, on a hill overlooking the scene, stood groups of officers from the SS and the Wehrmacht. Jeckeln was there with his entourage, flanked by Dr. Rasch; I also recognized some high-ranking officers of the Sixth Army. I saw Thomas, who noticed me but didn’t return my greeting. On the other side, the little groups tumbled down the flank of the ravine and joined the clusters of bodies that stretched farther and farther out. The cold was becoming biting, but some rum was being passed around, and I drank a little. Blobel emerged suddenly from a car on our side of the ravine, he must have driven around it; he was drinking from a little flask and shouting, complaining that things weren’t going fast enough. But the pace of the operations had been stepped up as much as possible. The shooters were relieved every hour, and those who weren’t shooting supplied them with rum and reloaded the clips. The officers weren’t talking much; some were trying to hide their distress. The Ortskommandantur had set up a field kitchen, and a military pastor was preparing some tea to warm up the Orpos and the members of the Sonderkommando. At lunchtime, the superior officers returned to the city, but the subalterns stayed to eat with the men. Since the executions had to continue without pause, the canteen had been set up farther down, in a hollow from which you couldn’t see the ravine. The Group was responsible for the food supplies; when the cases were broken open, the men, seeing rations of blood pudding, started raging and shouting violently. Häfner, who had just spent an hour administering deathshots, was yelling and throwing the open cans onto the ground: “What the hell is this shit?” Behind me, a Waffen-SS was noisily vomiting. I myself was livid, the sight of the pudding made my stomach turn. I went up to Hartl, the Group’s Verwaltungsführer, and asked him how he could have done that. But Hartl, standing there in his ridiculously wide riding breeches, remained indifferent. Then I shouted at him that it was a disgrace: “In this situation, we can do without such food!

So who is guilty? Everyone, or no one? Why should the worker assigned to the gas chamber be guiltier than the worker assigned to the boilers, the garden, the vehicles? The

Non era solo la questione di mia sorella; era più di così, era l'intero corso degli eventi, la miseria del corpo e del desiderio, le decisioni che si prendono e sulle quali non si può tornare, il senso stesso che si sceglie di dare a quella cosa che chiamiamo, forse a torto, la nostra vita.

both deaths were equally vain, neither of them shortened the war by so much as a second; but in both cases, the man or men who killed them believed it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who’s to blame? What

This path is very rarely the result of any choice, or even of personal predilection. The victims, in the vast majority of cases, were not tortured or killed because they were good any more than their executioners tormented them because they were evil. It

Olhei pela janela e vi como que um torso humano poisado entre os destroços: um soldado alemão, com as duas pernas arrancadas pela explosão, ria a bandeiras despregadas. Eu olhava e ele não parava de rir no meio de uma poça de sangue que alastrava pelo entulho

A ty zabijałeś ludzi"?.-"Raz musiałem dobijać. Ale zazwyczaj zajmowałem się wywiadem, pisałem raporty".-"A co czułeś, jak strzelałeś do tych ludzi?". Odpowiedziałem bez wachania: "To samo, co czułem, patrząc, jak inni strzelają. Gdy istnieje taka konieczność, staje się nieważne, kto to robi. Poza tym uważam, że patrząć, ponoszę taką samą odpowiedzialność jak ci, co strzelają".

Schellenberg had the habit of calling people he didn't like whores, and this term suited him well - and when I think about it, it's true that the insults people prefer, the ones that come most spontaneously to their lips, often in the end reveal their own hidden faults, since they naturally hate what they most resemble.

Ve státě jako je ten náš , měl každý přidělenou roli: ty jsi oběť, a ty, ty jsi kat, a nikdo neměl na vybranou, nikoho se neptali, jestli je s tím srozuměn, protože všichni byli zaměnitelní, oběti i katové.

Já vinen jsem, vy ne, a to je dobře. Měli byste mít nicméně možnost si říci, že toho, čeho jsem se dopustil já, byste se bývali dopustili taky. Možná s menší dávkou horlivosti, ale možná také s menší dávkou zoufalství, v každém případě nějakým způsobem ano. Snad mohu konstatovat, že, jak dokázaly moderní dějiny, za určitých daných okolností každý nebo téměř každý dělá to, co se mu řekne; a nezlobte se na mě, ale je jen malá pravděpodobnost, že zrovna vy byste byli výjimka, stejně jako jsem jí nebyl já. Jestli jste se narodili v zemi, kde nejen že vám nikdo nepřijde zabít ženu, ale kde ani nikdo nepřijde a neřekne vám, abyste šli zabíjet ženy a děti druhých, děkujte Bohu a jděte s pokojem. Ale pořád mějte na paměti tohle: možná jste měli víc štěstí než já, ale nejste lepší. Protože nebezpečí začíná právě ve chvíli, kdy najdete tolik troufalostí, abyste si to mysleli.

In mezzo a quei tizi avevo l'aria di un intellettuale un po' complicato, e restavo abbastanza isolato. Il che non mi dava fastidio: dell'amicizia con gente rozza ho sempre fatto a meno.

Volevo semplicemente augurarle di sopravvivere a questa guerra per risvegliarsi fra vent'anni, ogni notte, urlando. Spero che lei non riesca a guardare i suoi figli senza vedere i nostri che ha assassinato.

Quoting from Hegel and Jünger, he argued that the State could reach its ideal point of unity only in and through war: “If the individual is the negation of the State, then war is the negation of that negation. War is the moment of absolute socialization of the collective existence of the people, the Volk.” But