GRGR Re: German sadism

[Derek C. Maus]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Doug Millison wrote:

> If  Nazi crimes don't amount to a uniquely "German sadism" (given their
> very particular national cultural roots), what would you call them?

If you specifically qualify this with "Nazi crimes as depicted in GR" then
this is probably true, but I'm not sure exactly how accurate sadism is for
the historical version of things. The separation of the sexual
gratification element from the concept of sadism (thus reducing it merely
to something like "delight in pain" or a more perverse form of
schadenfreude) is highly problematic to me. Although there are the
occasional historical accounts of actual sadistic (i.e. like Sade) Nazis,
the overwhelming majority strike me as being much more banal/efficient in
their approach to cruelty. To be horrifically blunt about it, sadism isn't
the most effective way to achieve genocide, which is what the "Nazi
crimes" in the end amounted to. 

Again, the behavior of the prominent Nazis in the book *does* maintain
this sexual connection (as, of course, does the connection with the
British and American forces) which perhap says more about the sadism of
war (cf. the dick-shaped bullet, bomb, missile theory) in general than the
Nazi form of war specifically.

Not arguing, so much as wondering about qualification,

	Derek

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Derek C. Maus               | "My fondest hope is to die at the hands
dmaus at email.unc.edu         |   of a murderer. In America, the truly 
UNC-CH, Dept. of English    |       famous are always murdered."
http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  |                   --Quentin Crisp
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