Ethical Diversions

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Mackin [mailto:paul.mackin at verizon.net]
>> In another twist to the story, Dallas argues that the "event decisive  
> for the fate of the Jews" was initiated not by Hitler but by Stalin  
> when he deported the Volga Germans to Siberia in September 1941.  
> Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi minister for the eastern territories, told  
> Hitler that virtually none would survive. "It seems that it was  
> between late September and October 1941 that Hitler, not a forgiving  
> man, decided to exterminate the Jews of Europe in return." Thus the  
> two regimes' policies were linked in a murderous tit for tat. The  
> acceleration of Hitler's extermination program in 1942 was a reaction  
> to a war that was being lost. After the defeat in front of Moscow,  
> Dallas argues, Hitler "was obliged to imagine ways in which his Nazi  
> ideology could survive.... The Jews, all the Jews, would have to be  
> murdered while he still had control, before the war was ended."
> 

that's how Weissmann symbolizes the Holocaust to me: a leader so out of touch as to make batshit decisions that are obviously wrong and evil (ja, let's send you up in one of those V-weapons, Liebchen, and blow up a bunch of people to whom we've not even been properly introduced), and followers crazy (apathetic? habituated to obedience? Stockholm Syndrome?) enough to carry them out.

I'm probably not totally synched with Pynchon's intent, but I get rather frothy at the mouth about Weissmann.
As to how I might conceptualize Weissmann more in line with Pynchon's calm depiction of him, I'd welcome any clues.