Crumbling Pyramids: the Fall of Totalitarian Communist Rule in Poland and Memory of the Forest

Paul Andreas Fischer

5.8.2015

Jonathon D. Huener

Crumbling Pyramids: the Fall of Totalitarian Communist Rule in Poland and Memory of the Forest

In Memory of the Forest, by Charles T. Powers, the beginning does not assume significance. It does not throw on the tapestries of European historical writing by dwelling on the horrific natures of mutually assured destruction and consumerism that gripped American writers at the time. However, for those who have read Little House on the Prairie or listened to the more contemporary Garrison Keeler on National Public Radio, there will be a reassuring familiarity in the stories of a “little town in Poland”. Looking at the characterization of the Polish nationality and the nature of life under Communist rule may cast some light on the fate and nature of infamous “the disappeared” of totalitarian government in Poland. To understand the missing, it is first necessary to understand how they were while present.

The history of Poland is rife with running. It is a recurring theme, from military withdrawals to the systematic hunt, or Jager, of the Jewish populations during World War Two. Persecution of Jews proceeded under Stalinist anti-zionist campaigns which periodically emanated from Moscow. With the downfall of Communism in Europe and Russia, a new running was beginning: a female friend of the protagonist of the book, Leszek, named Jola says, “maybe I’m running, but I’m running with my family”. Desperate to leave the villages behind, perhaps it finally felt for the Poles as if there was something, an American dream perhaps, to run to, even if this would be found simply in a larger city now.

Bribery can be seen to be rampant at this time, “it wasn’t a question of moral qualm; just lack of know-how” Just as the American rock song The Farm or Tobacco Road by Jefferson Airplane exalts the benefits of country life, the Poles too have an aversion to the city life, compounded by sentiments of anti-establishmentarianism crossed with disdain for the inveterate lack of life found in fellow city dwellers. Father Jerzy, speaking at a funeral points out that “the culture of the totalitarian gives rise to the totalitarian solution, to force, to murder”. This symptom of systemic sickness is easily diagnosed, the smaller observations can be harder to emphasize, though they lie out in the open, both in life and in this book. One frustration in early country life is technological illiteracy; a local priest, Father Tadeuz, refuses to bless a copy machine.

A fundamental distrust of technology is not limited to the clergy. Cars break down, the heavy industry emphasis of early communism, never significantly successful in satellite states, was long gone and the system had entered a period of prolonged decay ominously omitted from Marxist forecasts as symptomatic of an isolated and unnatural economic system. There is an overwhelming claustrophobia about economic conditions, and while things would be getting better, for these Poles it seemed “as though the air were rationed”.

In order for a small village to obtain even basic necessities like coal, someone had to engage in nefarious behavior, from diversion of food to illicit sexual companions or intoxicating substances. The economic value of goods at the time is complicated by the addition of complementary services from necessary connections to perseverance in obtaining what one or a group needed. Yet times are changing and “nothing was sure any longer, the great pyramid of power was crumbling, visibly notched and chunked at the top, reduced to uncertain sand at the bottom”. This change represented a violent movement away from early notions of revolution upon which many in the social structure had become raised to their positions.

Father Jerzy offers greater insight than the mere violence perpetrated, but also points the finger at the behavior of Communists once they had acquired the mechanisms of control. Poland “is poor because the Communists robbed the people for forty years. Suppressed the church. Encouraged the collapse of the family. Sent Bolshevik Jews and Stalinist tyrants to rule over our lives, to remove religion from the schools”. In the final accusation, the remnants of the anti-zionist campaign can be seen; Polish recognition of anti-semitism can be hard to come by, and nearly as great a crime as the purges under Communist rule was the utter lack of apology, the wretched fear and hatred instilled in the population, which was left exposed for the west, still smouldering from decades past.

Unlike many revolutionary or economic constructions and movements in the United States, the fall of Communism was not one of young people throwing off the yoke of the archaic, reactionary system. Instead it was tired old people, ones who had fought and killed for a way of life that stubbornly refused to materialize, desperate for a new solution. The protagonist's grandpa has a mild, teasing disdain for “anyone he associated with what he thought of as the structure of Socialism”. Meanwhile those who make sure the village is warm and survives from year to year must attend frequent Party meetings to turn the sickening wheels of corruption.

Still, for these young capitalists to lament the totalitarianism seems to be a loss of place in a certain way. Just as in America, the USSR was seen with an uneasy distrust, along with some useful programs that took a long time to take hold here, people behind the Iron Curtain must have also had such misgivings and suspicion of the brave new world offered. Equally important to the protagonist as he snoops around this small village, is the Jewish history, or lack thereof.

“There was no history here, no archive, no memorial”. As useless as an empty American prairie to digest the atrocities that occurred, land once resplendent with clues, from graves to lifestyles of European Jewry, the small Polish town and its inhabitants still wallow in ignorance of the acts committed by local and occupying authorities. Some of the apathy and ignorance of the village is explained by the pathetic “cultural center” which contains a handful of books and a desk. Some, like a travel agent “proud of his crisp uniform” believe in the system. With an arrogant uselessness, the agent’s eyes barely waver from the screen and the protagonist is disgusted.

This is not all of the Polish national character that is contained in this book. Like Poland, the young men are brave. Old men look for the characteristics of their leaders in the eyes of their young. There is a romance, which is flawed by its innocence, and the omniscient recognition that to change this will create folly many times that of any flaw apparent in this relationship. With the tunnel-vision of young love, the social stratification and troubles of the village still must come first. That could be a sole logical fallacy, but as in life, white lies are necessary in literature to facilitate the delivery of important messages and for the enjoyment of the reader. For an American, the disparate love and hatred between child and adult, the ignominious recognition of a failing system is apparent. This strange distance is also quite alien; this brings one closer to the judgemental decisions which are begged and are continually recurring. It is fitting that in conclusion, Leszek confesses for his father. Some would argue as well, that it is fitting that he does not pay for these crimes. Polish families continue to live in the former homes of their Jewish neighbours exiled or killed through the brutal methodology of fear intimidation and exclusion (not to juxtapose the acronym when it is not necessitated).

A final note of how these officiously useless figures and apathetic, ignorant people came to lose faith in a political system convoluted by decades of isolation is needed. “Do I hear my charges now or at the trial?” a chairman of a farmer’s co-op laughingly asks, referring to his potential accusers as young crusaders. The concept of being charged was laughable, the ideation of criminality had lost its grip through repressive measures and negative execution of judiciary demands.

While the book is a memory, and little more, it is also a historical artifact. Interestingly, more striking than the outlandish tales of foreign peoples that characterized early travellers’ accounts such as Marco Polo or Cortes in the renaissance or age of absolutism, this story will touch an American reader with similarities. The small town, rife with mystery and intrigue. A long forgotten but intrinsically detailed past involving every family rushes to meet the villagers in the light of the present day. Morally and ethically, the reader must contemplate reality and juxtapose a unique system of judgement in evaluating these people; so much of what is experienced strikes home, even for one not natural to the Polish character.

An open letter to the makers of The Other Side Of Cannabis: Negative Effects of Marijuana on Our Youth a Documentary

Foreward note: One thing I did not include in this letter, that will be included in later research, is the impact of marijuana on the dentae gyrus. This is the part of the brain responsible for memory. I did not realize that research had been done on this before, and the doctor from Paris provided excellent evidence. While he was attempting to show that heavy marijuana use decreases brain cell production in this area by 25%, he was not taking into consideration earlier research also done in Paris which shows more than 10-15 mg of nicotine daily reduces brain cell genesis in this part of the brain by 50%; under 5 mg of nicotine will produce no significant change and may be beneficial though with the exception of pipe tobacco smokers, this level of nicotine intake is virtually unheard of. French marijuana users almost exclusively use a mixture of 80% tobacco and 20% marijuana, making them this sort of heavy smokers (a mainstream American cigarette will give as much as 2.6 mg of nicotine, while the lowest nicotine cigarettes give .2-.4 mg, some nations such as Germany limit nicotine to .8 mg per cigarette).

Hello,
     I highly suspect we are on different sides of the debate on marijuana legalization. However, there are certain things which cannot be ignored as potential external costs of this industry. I have watched your film carefully and taken notes. My opinion is that you are discouraging people who are better off using marijuana from using it, and encouraging those who are at a vulnerable point in their life (usually childhood) to try it. I will support this in detail.
     Firstly some background. Marijuana is good for the brain and body when used in a responsible manner (5-10 grams per week). It increases functional connectivity as well as IQ, as proven in cohort studies as well as fMRI and SPECT scan imaging. It also helps bone health (which is connected to hair health and spine health) in adults. Psychosis is caused by child abuse and this has been proven conclusively.
     However, when consumed by children, especially in larger amounts, THC reduces bone density in a similar fashion to alcohol, and may negatively impact cognition, though research to my knowledge is not conclusive in this manner. Therefore, setting the use age at the same level as alcohol and enforcing it in this matter is of paramount importance.
     So how does an anti-marijuana film make kids like my little brother, sister or others use the drug? Well the research is badly done. The first doctor cited in this film, Dr. Eden Evins was recently cited in an expose by Vice in which she was shown to work for pharmaceutical companies that opposed marijuana, including projects with competing products in a major breach of scientific ethics. Her evidence in the documentary is unsubstantiated by causal data or evidence: in fact the euphoric dopamine releases of marijuana (THC) have been proven to be less than that of a good run or a good meal. There are no proven known withdrawal symptoms other than afterglow.
     The first testimony from a parent relies on accusations that marijuana is bad for mental health. This was true in a correlative manner decades ago, when homosexuality was part of the counterculture like marijuana and a diagnosable disease. Now, we have brain scans and hormonal proof which shows that the mental disorders ascribed to marijuana actually had their origins in other toxins or abusive relationships as children or adults. Social engineering will not fly with children.
     The argument that is proposed by a student after this is among the strongest reasons to use marijuana as an adult: smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol will kill you before the average life expectancy of 78 years, and the most aggressive anti-tobacco movement will claim as much as 10 years are lost due to smoking and lung cancer (though controlling for exercise drops this to two years). Users of marijuana enjoy a protective effect against alcohol induced brain damage and tobacco's damage to the lungs. For a kid to see and hear any of these arguments is unacceptable.
     If proven, highlighting the potential damage of marijuana to the brain in children which does not occur in adults, is important. I applaud this particular section of the film, though I believe the biggest change in high school or younger users is in cognitive function. Again, psychosis is caused by child abuse.
     Marijuana does make a user calmer, and this is reproducible evidence. Abused children suffer a permanent increase in cortisol release, a stress hormone. While a small increase is incurred by smoking marijuana in the short term (it is less than a beer, so if the victim can drink a beer without a panic attack, it is clear they faking if the claim this reaction from marijuana), long term use lowers baseline cortisol release levels, it is the only substance on earth which gives these abused children the chance to feel normal eventually as adults.
     Returning to addiction, which the dopamine release studies should cover fully, daily vs. weekly is a weak way of evaluating marijuana use. This should be done in amounts (in grams and %THC, as the IQ cohort studies from Canada which showed a causal increase in IQ from marijuana use did) and length of time used. Saying that marijuana is as dangerous as other drugs is an international crime.  Distribution of chemical weapons is illegal, and the makers of this film can be prosecuted for this, as hard drugs by definition qualify as chemical weapons (drug laws actually protect users and distributers of these substances in the USA, unfortunately, offering jail time instead of the death penalty or life sentences international law dictates). Remember that Goebbels would have swung at the Nuremberg trials, not to make light of a serious situation, but with 250,000 mortalities annually from hard or prescription drug overdose in the USA alone, this is quite serious.
     Furthermore, the gateway theory does not have any legitimate application. Such behaviour can be proven with any boycott or banned activity or good, in quite similar ratios. This is reproducible: the damage done when society not only ensures unsafe materials are not available but also makes safe substances available. For people who have medical necessity, this can be devastating.
      Unqualified claims that marijuana operates as an incremental repeating damage speaks in the face of known science and chemistry. Even with 10X moderate use levels, there have not been negative effects associated with THC one month after the last use, as shown by research conducted at Harvard University. The Federal Government released a report which shows that marijuana users have the same accident rate as sober individuals, twenty six times less than drinkers. Misinformation, especially in such a blatant manner and on such large subjects so well publicized will have a negative effect on the ability of this film to achieve any ethical or real success.
      The price of marijuana is too high. It should be the same price as tobacco, it is a plant, and less addictive with less external costs. Yet this industry is currently paying the external costs of abusive parents and bully school-mates, and paying it in jail time. It is now time to clear the air. Is it really true that non-marijuana users use more medication than marijuana users, or is this another claim which might drive young children (I assume this is the audience for this film) to use when they find out this is false? Perhaps the argument would be better phrased that marijuana users avoid medications, at least this would be true, if not honest (not to add fodder to this fire). The majority of Americans have used some sort of mood altering medication regularly, from alcohol (yes it was once considered only legal for medical purposes too) to more severe substances.
      The emergency room argument is among the best reasons for people propagating marijuana use as well. When people are in the hospital for other drugs or alcohol, it is a heart attack, it is an OD, it is a homicide case (half of handgun deaths are alcohol related, almost 40% involve hard drugs). Marijuana users who end up in the hospital are seeking to work through endemic problems in their childhood or life.
      Laced marijuana is poisoning, and this falls under federal poisoning acts. While marijuana is measured in a similar fashion to bad parking, requiring a single clean drug test and fine under the Controlled Substances' Act diversion program, poisoning marijuana behaviour is analogous to taking a baseball bat to someone's car parked in the wrong spot. It is improper procedure to even call the police in such a situation, and may be prosecuted for solicitation of a police officer (though the chances are about as unlikely as ending up in the federal diversion program).
      Brain scans on marijuana have a murky past, but the evidence is clear and compelling now. Marijuana users enjoy a causal increase in functional connectivity while suffering no significant changes to other parts of the brain. There were doctors and organizations fingered who accepted money from competing interests in a breach of scientific ethics, a slippery slope, as mentioned before. Their results were not reproducible (this also holds with much psychosis or schizophrenic research). Retrospective research has made the reality perfectly clear, and has been completed at 6 major universities, as well as by numerous individuals as the cost of brain scans has decreased significantly.
Furthermore, neurogenesis has been shown to increase in marijuana users, as well as blunted damage to the dentae gyrus, responsible for memories, suffered from nicotine intake (in European studies on the subject, where 80% or more tobacco is used in conjunction with marijuana cigarettes). Nicotine in low amounts may have a positive effect on the brain, but over 10 or 15 mg per day can decrease new brain cell birth by around 50%.
     While SPECT scan imaging has been rejected by the DEA due to inconsistencies in diagnostic procedure, along with breaches in multiple levels of scientific ethics (involuntary administration of radiation for example, the doctors who argue these patients are mentally unable to make decisions are also subjecting them to this procedure), it holds enormous promise. The image of a marijuana smoker's brain provided is neither the effect of long term heavy marijuana use nor even a social drinker, but most likely a moderate to heavy drinker in the early stages or a light to moderate drinker later in life. It may be accurate to those who consume marijuana as children, but this should be emphasized, especially as the topic of the film is the youth!
      While the information on anandamide is interesting and new, it is not conclusive. The stress hormone cortisol is the standard for measuring stress, and this is higher in people before they smoke marijuana than after long term use. This seems to contradict the hypothesis posed about anandamide, though it is important to remember that chemically very small changes in a molecule can yield very big changes in behaviour inside the body. Most people do not have or need to have the research on hand to disprove this nonsense, but luckily I have seen evidence to the effect that the dopamine release from eating a good meal is about 10% greater than that from a good marijuana high. Sexual activities are about double, though I would leave this out of a documentary aimed at children. Unfortunately America does not have the resources to allow adequate sexual activity, exercise and gourmet food as humans have had access to for millennia. We do have the resources to use marijuana and practice monogamy (currently the law) with occasional gourmet meals. This is reproducible research and publicly available making this section an instance of either a very serious breach in scientific ethics or very surprising ignorance on the behalf of a trained professional.
      Suicide rates are down in Colorado. It would be best to limit personal stories to stereotypes or claims which can be backed by science. That being said, there is a big difference between the breach in ethics (which may not even be intentional) and the intentionalism of many trained professionals who have clearly not thoroughly researched the topic at hand sufficiently to make these statements. Advertisement of a program which does not wish it can be dangerous, and the use of the twelve-step program, which specifically addresses this topic could create difficulty and hardship for those who are trying to recover by the book, in the way originally conceived (although at the time this seems to have indicated a substitution procedure with LSD, coffee, tobacco, adultery, which is advocated as an adequate punishment for relapse, or marijuana, at least according to biographies of the founder, Bill). This sort of solicitation can also break anonymity or lead to conversations which break anonymity for early or long-time users in recovery.
      Finally, CBD is interesting, but this research must be done thoroughly. Currently, it has been used on national television to encourage the administration of marijuana to children. This is unacceptable, THC at the least will induce damage to a child's bone structure, and it is possible that CBD may do the same, though admittedly there is not adequate research in this field.

Marginalization of Intelligentsia and Extermination of European Jewry in Nazi Germany

Paul Andreas Fischer

4/15/2015

Marginalization of Intelligentsia and Extermination of European Jewry in Nazi Germany 

The breakdown of academic institutions was felt throughout Germany. Despite Alfred Hitchcock’s assertion that “trading a few books” seemed well worth the military conquests made by Germans, the reality was that the nation was one in freefall and tatters, on a scale virtually unprecedented in the history of mankind. The elimination of the lower end of the “tail” on a natural bell curve through eugenics and euthanasia programs has been well publicized. However, the marginalization of the other tail, the intelligentsia, is less well understood. It will be necessary to work from the Nicosia and Huener anthology, Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany, in order to formulate a concise explanation for the exact method and procedure which resulted in a nation on the forefront of technological progress to become the mechanism for the most destructive killing machine in history.

        This breakdown will be seen as responsibility for development of Nazi racial ideology, experimentation and opportunism as well as the consequences for breaches in scientific ethics, and the direct involvement of educated medical professionals in methodological killing as well as in development of the systems, social and scientific, which made this possible. Throughout, it will be analyzed through two lenses. Firstly, the crackdown on tobacco use and production in 1941-2 offers a pericope of cumulative radicalization and of the marginalization of those adequately qualified to hold academic posts in Nazi Germany while offering as well a tangible and previously underexplored explanation for why the final solution was not issued until 1942, and how during a wartime economy 10 percent of national insecticide production would be suicidally diverted to what Nazi leaders referred to as the Jewish problem. Then to expand from this, information will be offered on the destruction of medical and scientific institutions and the role leaders in medical and scientific professions played in using the threat of disenfranchisement to bully subordinates into compliance, use of cumulative radicalization to brainwash citizens to racial ideologies, and in the actual act of killing itself, from development of the newest techniques of mass murder and post-traumatic stress disorder minimization to the selection of prisoners to be killed.

The Final Solution to the Tobacco Question and Confluence to the Holocaust

        It is not currently known exactly how much nicotine from tobacco was used during the war years, but one can assume it was substantial; in the post-war years of 1945-50 2,500 tons of nicotine-based insecticide was used worldwide^[1]. While annual use of Zyklon B, the killing agent commercially sold as an insecticide, was almost thirteen times greater than the amount used to commit Holocaust, it has been shown that the purchases after 1941 (when gassing commenced) were made primarily at one time and constituted almost a quarter of national supply^[2]. Hand picked land is about fifty times less efficient than that treated with insecticide, and that is the sort of prohibitive cost which could have hindered Nazi leaders from recognizing their racial goals early in the regime.

        Battling tobacco was not new to the Nazi agenda, but before 1941 this policy had been couched in terms of anti-internationalist agendas. Hitler hoped to use the fact that Jewish Marxists in the professors’ rebellion of 1848 had advocated tobacco use, or at least fought religious anti-tobacco sentiments, as evidence of a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy. It also reinforced racial ideology as he described tobacco as “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor.”^[3] 

        Yet legal sanctions only began in 1938; until 1941 tobacco seemed to be safe against the prejudices of an academic system gone woefully and extensively awry. The Universal Tobacco Institute continued to operate, as did the hundreds of thousands of Germans the industry employed. Then, eerily close to the first testing of Zyklon B in concentration camps for victim gassing, a militant operation was launched to drive out the tobacco industry. “The Reich Institute for Tobacco Research in Forcheim, ear Karlsruhe, perfected methods to remove nicotine” during the war, which supplemented waste materials to be processed into insecticide for use by the agricultural industry.^[4] This was carried out with military efficiency, and while it cannot be known precisely when the change occurred, with estimates variable throughout the war, it can be said with certainty that between 1938 and 1948 tobacco use dropped from almost 130,000 tonnes to just over 30,000 tonnes.^[5] The industry would not recover to pre-war levels until 1965.

        While the act of smoking had thus far been viewed perhaps as a form of “passive resistance”,^[6] after this turning point it also became part of the Nazi’s ultimate ideological goal: racial purification. Convictions were never pressed against the seller of Zyklon B, the Degesch Administrative Board, and though all members were arrested for sometime, charges were dropped within weeks. The board members claimed to have no recollection of foreknowledge of the destination of the gas. Whether the same can be said for the anti-smoking campaigns which created such a surplus in the first place will unfortunately never be known. It can be known that there must have been someone with knowledge of the ideological value of the decision in order to move focus from the Physician’s League’s earlier role of spreading “biographical information about Jewish colleagues who were still practicing medicine” and cementing the scientific basis of the ideological claims of the party.^[7]

        However, the sudden prosecution of tobacco executives in Nazi Germany was not logically sound or based in science. Research consisted of handfuls of industrial workers who smoked “extremely heavy” amounts of tobacco correlated with data from questionnaires that were empirically useless, which can be seen repeated today in anti-smoking campaigns.^[8] Fortunately, what prevented modern science in the USA from following the same path as German scientists did on this matter was adjustment of tobacco studies for levels of exercise in 1999 and demonstration over the years of the actual effect of air pollution and how much air pollution can be generated by a cigarette. This resulted from a rigorous and thorough adherence to the scientific method which was sadly missing in Nazi controlled institutions, which pursued ideological goals before establishing a firm causal to correlative experimental proof. In addition to shooting the anti-tobacco campaigns full of holes, such adherence also could have easily shown fallacies in the logic of racial and euthanasia programs, as the groups played important social roles previously and with rapid industrialization and the entourage of dangerous chemicals had begun to play a technological role that far outweighed what little sadistic gains were made from “experimentation” on murdered victims.

        Ultimately the medical profession had the highest level of Nazi Party, SS, and SA membership among professions at the time. This involvement was spurred onwards by promises of job prospects and respect, but retained with the overwhelming death, first of eugenics then war and then industrial murder. It was encouraged at a young age, even in university with characters like Karl Astel who, a “vocal Anti-Semite and high-ranking SS officer, Astel was also a militant anti-smoker and teetotaler who banned smoking at the University of Jena and soon became known for snatching cigarettes from the mouths of students who dared to violate the ban.”^[9] Turning a blind eye to the Hippocratic Oath and medical ethics became only too easy as more and more professionals felt they owed their sick success to the regime.  

Fascism and Medicine: Cure-all Against Sound Logic

        The insistent role of fascism in the medical field had played into earlier euthanasia and eugenics programs which crippled the national understanding of many diseases by eliminating (to use statistical, and not qualitative language) the null values in society; “physicians, dentists, pharmacists - selected those destined for the gas chambers” which reinforced the random brutality of what occurred to those in charge as well as overwhelmed subordinates, and psychological sadism or mental illness did play a role, it is not necessary to look farther than the experiments of Mengele or others to see this. The lack of professional discernment for qualifications and ethics also enabled later reinforcement of racial ideology which evolved from old wives’ tales at the formation of the Reich into a pseudoscience by marginalizing the influence of doctors and professionals whose careers were staked in understanding these ailments or the impact of pollutants which are now known to cause them. With no small irony “the same academic research institutions that gave birth to modern medicine and medical science and medical education also fostered what was to become the greatest program of human destruction in the history of humankind.”^[10]

        This had already begun in 1936 with a nationwide eugenics and euthanasia program which resonated with calls for racial purification and touched on trends being tested in other nations with sterilization. A poster in support of the program read “We are not alone!” but left out the destruction to German society, starving babies, and industrial contamination which followed. While in other nations, intact academic institutions recognized the social and technological value of these populations, the defunct academic system in Germany allowed the same demagoguery to dominate in the medical system as had already consumed the political system. The two worked seamlessly to support each other and ensure that radicalization of the population occurred.

        As Germany prepared for war, medical licenses or approbations were provided with increasingly lower levels of training and as a reward for party membership or loyalty. With the declaration of war doctors began to receive emergency medical licences, or notapprobations, and membership in the SS was admirable. They were deployed, medical professionals of all stripes, to select healthy prisoners, in which there was unanimous compliance. All that separated the doctors was unique sadism on the behalf of a few. This was an organization of death, and the mission and goal was the destruction of Germany’s foes. Compounded by the madness of murder perpetrated on a systemic scale, sadistic doctors found themselves with an open licence, not just in medicine, but in all matters life, death, and pain in between. Examples of torture include radiological scanning with lumbar punctures uniquely painful, “psychological” experiments in which prisoners were simply poisoned with sausages, and violently induced blindness and other disease.

        Fortunately, the experimentation did not pan out for German scientists, and the pressure to produce increased. Rather than a return to the hypothesis or theorems being tested (or in practice in this case), which would have been necessitated by scientific method, this was pursued by an economical doubling down on the same old concepts previously rejected. Two things made this decision incontrovertible for Nazi leaders at the time: the coming declaration of war in 1938 and availability of nicotine-based insecticide. Without these catalysts, it is likely that the ivory tower would have provided the protection needed to ensure success in reversing the fundamental fallacies in logic which resulted in some of the greatest tragedies ever seen.

---

[1] Ujváry, István. "Nicotine and other insecticidal alkaloids." In Nicotinoid Insecticides and the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor, pp. 29-69. Springer Japan, 1999, 2.

[2] Hayes, Peter. From cooperation to complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press, 2007, 296.

[3] Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 51.

[4] Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 49.

[5] Forey, Barbara, Jan Hamling, John Hamling, Alison Thornton, and Peter Lee. "International Smoking Statistics Web Edition A Collection of Worldwide Historical Data Germany." P N Lee Statistics and Computing Ltd. October 24, 2011. Accessed April 16, 2015, 10.

[6]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 52.

[7]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 79.

[8]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 47.

[9]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 50.

[10]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 94.

Desensitization, Fear, and the Promise of Courage in Ordinary Men

Desensitization, Fear, and the Promise of Courage in Ordinary Men

Paul Andreas Fischer

History of the Holocaust

3.23.2015

Desensitization, Fear, and the Promise of Courage in Ordinary Men

Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a unit of police officers tasked with the extermination and deportations of certain populations of Jews and Poles in Nazi controlled areas, beginning with the massacre at Józefów. These men had no prior experience in warfare or killing, and could have been described as incompetent for regular military service. In Christopher Browning’s accounts of what happened, two salient explanations of their behaviour surface: desensitization, and the promise of commendation for courage in the killing process. This paper will examine these in detail, and draw on other sources to emphasize that these acts of terror were instigated and carried out through fear. In addition some basic information on the events that transpired and the men responsible will be offered.

Initial Discomfort of Battalion 101

The battalion was made up of policemen and deployed early in the occupation of Poland. There was little to no fore-knowledge of the nature of the activities they would be responsible for. Their duties primarily consisted of escort and evacuation of Polish political prisoners at the beginning, and Gypsies and Jewish prisoners as well. Eventually, the orders came to liquidate certain groups, and they became the instruments of mass killing. At the time of their actions in the massacres, many were haunted, but few dropped out. The trinkets that were confiscated from victims before execution-style killings did little to quell the images of being face to face with them before shooting .

Only twelve of the five hundred assigned to the atrocious acts opted out in the first shooting of over 1000 Jews. Eventually, less than 20% are estimated to have found a way to evade their duty. In interviews with surviving perpetrators, one describes his determination to shoot with the others as a fear of appearing “cowardly” while commanding officers humiliated those unable to perform the actions. It is clear that these group dynamics were a contributing factor to the successful elimination of the Jews. Some of those who did not drop out had internalized the fascist ideology of the Nazi party, and admitted later that it was a long time before they realized there had been anything wrong with what they had done.

This retrospective lack of guilt shows that the willingness to kill did not occur without protest or as the result of long-term cumulative radicalization, but caused psychological damage to the German soldiers. “It was a tenacious, remorseless, ongoing campaign in which the “hunters” tracked down and killed their “prey” in direct and personal confrontation.” The campaign also developed as the extermination continued, soldiers became more and more efficient and indifferent to their task. Germans had been told that these people were not human, but policemen still found themselves physically sickened. There is an eyewitness account of the Major Trapp, the leader of the battalion who was both responsible for the atrocities as well as one who sympathized with soldiers who could not carry out killings, weeping like a child and he later confides to a driver that if the actions are ever revenged, “then have mercy on us Germans.” He was later executed in war trials, a grim realization of his early prophetic remorse.

The apprehensiveness was not shared by others in command; Captain Hoffman reproached his unit that they had not, “proceeded energetically enough” and company doctors were on hand to instruct the manner of inducing death immediately. This was not quite enough to spare the soldiers the psychological harm, and they emerged from the woods “spattered in blood and brains.” Trapp would later release Jews rounded up after execution squads did not arrive in a timely fashion, which showed a commitment to his lack of comfort in following the abhorrent orders. Later massacres would be carried out after guard duty in work camps, allowing Germans to become more accustomed to the concept of killing Jews, and they became increasingly efficient.

Source of Courage, the Promise of Commendation and the Selbschultz

Some of the courage from soldiers was in the nationalism they felt for Germany, whether they saw the Jews as people or not, most did accept the view that these people were enemies of the state. This was reiterated at the massacre at Serokomla in May 1940 where acts were perpetrated by “vigilante-style units known as Selbschultz (“self-defense”),” and the events of resistance, such as when Poles ambushed Jobst, a German, or armed free camps of Jews and Polish political prisoners often were met with shocking brutality and retaliatory killings. For helping Jews, a village could be massacred or random killings perpetrated such as occurred when “strangers and temporary residents of Talcyn on the one hand, and those without sufficient means of existence on the other,” were randomly selected for retaliation, and 180 Jews were also slaughtered.

The concept of Jews as enemies of the state was harder to justify with the execution of small children. The least effective strategy was early mass-murder. As the soldiers gained experience, they gained efficiency, for “distancing, not frenzy and brutalization is one of the keys to the behaviour of Reserve Police Battalion 101.” This was a cold, calculated attempt to dull the human conscience to mass murder. One soldier tried to justify his actions by casting himself as the liberator or redeemer of their souls. Most disturbing, however, is the role of career ambitions.

The perpetrators in the Battalion were not prosecuted until long after the war, and it was not until the 1960s that attention was given to the massacre of Jews. Many soldiers retained positions in police forces after the war, according to Browning, and “career ambitions must have played an important role.” While on one hand they were faced with the prospect of deployment to a battlefield many in the battalion were totally unprepared for, on the other hand the carrot of promise of recognition and career advancement was dangled temptingly in front of the policemen.

In the event that soldiers or officers evaded duty, they could be given career threatening dismissal or other reprimands. For the romantic Hoffman, who suffered stomach cramps from psychological pain, but exhibited enthusiasm for the process, even bringing his bride to deportations, his career was ended after failing to appear at important events. The promise of courageous commendation tempered and amplified by fear, what some might describe as a cowardly obedience, helps to explain why these actions took place, but to understand how cigarette salesmen, tailors, and working-class middle-aged men could become some of the most brutal murderers in history, it is necessary to look to the desensitization process in the policemen.

Fear and Desensitization of German Policemen

The policemen had internalized some of the Nazi propaganda by this time, but “by virtue of their age, of course, all went through their formative period in the pre-Nazi era” and they saw their victims as contemporaries; it must have been difficult to follow orders and look them in the eyes before shooting them. Later instructions were given to shoot them in the backs of their necks, as they toppled into graves, or even have them lie down next to dead bodies as they were shot. Wounded were often buried alive, according to an eyewitness. This can be seen in another example of mass killing as well.

In Indonesia, political squads were responsible for killing around 2.6 million people, and a film, The Act of Killing, recounts many similar problems and psychological issues presented. Political action squads moved from shootings to strangulation as a primary method of murder, and some men were responsible for the murder of thousands of innocents as well. Use of intoxicating substances played a role, in battalion 101, “alcohol was made available to the policemen” so many soldiers’ memories are vague and their actions were marked by extreme intoxication. In Indonesia as well, the squads drank and used black market drugs to keep their mind away from the atrocities. This is relevant because it shows some of the necessary and persistent ingredients to reaching the critical mass of compliance in order to secretly carry out authoritative tasks such as those assigned to these groups.

As killings moved towards extermination with the final order to exterminate in 1942, the German police battalion was not responsible for direct killing as much as deportation to death camps. The actions became less barbarous, but the ultimate end was far more sinister. To soldiers, “after Józefów, the roundup and guarding of Jews to be killed by someone else seemed relatively innocuous.” This meant incidents of soldiers going mad in the woods or shooting their ceiling in barracks during nightmares began to lessen or cease. Yet still, “one action followed another in unremitting succession”; soldiers must have found their own part unbearable to live with. As in Indonesia, it would be a long time before the government or perpetrators themselves would inform them they had done something explicitly wrong.

At the end of the book there is discussion given to the various methods of radicalization. The radicalization was not something that could have happened in a single hour long indoctrination session, but must have been the result of cumulative societal prejudice. In experiments, when ordered by a doctor, 30 or 40% of participants would electrocute their subjects, depending on whether or not they were watched. It is a testament to how proliferation of the racial ideology of the Nazis were in Germany that these numbers in policemen asked to carry out even greater acts of terror and mass murder were raised to 80%, and under some commanders 100%. It also speaks to the role that authority plays in assigning the role of enemy to an innocent.

What Made Monsters of Men

While one would think it takes more than simple carrots and sticks, the use of promise of a career advancement and threat of dismissal to make monsters of men. The harrowing story recounted here shows that this is not the case. Using simple propaganda, desensitizing actions and substances, along with an effective demonstration of necessity, the nadir of human morality was exposed. Neither fresh recruits (few had prior experience in German occupied territory), nor seasoned veterans could carry out this sort of task easily, but given the instruction, humans most unanimously will, a chilling concept.

The holocaust gives a sense of the gravity and importance of government. Subsequent studies argue that every human has the capability to display all of the symptoms of totalitarianism, and that democracy is a precious thing which must be guarded jealously. Failure to take liberty seriously and export of democratic ideology does not just preclude a reversion to fascism, but a radicalization of authoritarianism. In these rank and file policemen, only around 25% were party members in 1942, yet they became part of the most terrifying tool of destruction known to man.

Nicotine shown to have half the constrictive properties on veins as alcohol, and marijuana actually will make them bigger (with vasorelaxatory properties identified in THC)!

Nicotine and vein constriction:

"Smoking was associated with significant changes in the aortic pressure-diameter relation that denote deterioration of the elastic properties and were maintained during the whole study period: the slope of the pressure-diameter loop became steeper (baseline, 35.43±1.38; minute 1, 45.26±1.65; peak at minute 10, 46.36±1.69 mm Hg/mm; P<.001) and aortic distensibility decreased (baseline, 2.08±0.12; minute 1, 1.60±0.08; nadir at minute 5, 1.54±0.07×10⁻⁶ cm²·dyne⁻¹; P<.001). In contrast, no changes in aortic elasticity indexes were observed with sham smoking."

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/95/1/31.short

Alcohol and vein constriction:

"Blood ethanol levels achieved at 60, 120, and 180 minutes were 649+-48, 1,285±81, and 2,546+-130jug/ml, respectively. LAD cross-sectional area was reduced significantly from control at the end of each of the three dosing periods (-24± 5%, -40± 3%, and -53±.3%; p<0.004). a-Adrenergic blockade had no effecton LAD cross-sectional area, while nicardipine partially reversed the ethanol-induced vasoconstriction. No significant change in vessel cross-sectional area took place in control dogs."

 http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/78/1/165.full.pdf

Marijuana and vein relaxation:

"The present results provide strong evidence that THC is a PPARγ ligand, stimulation of which causes time-dependent vasorelaxation"
This results in a lower blood pressure and better athletic performance.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X05021352

Fine Particulate Matter in Tobacco and Air Pollution, a Prospective Review of Mortality Rates

    Review of mortality rates among tobacco smokers and non-smokers has been inconclusive. While tobacco use is associated with between 1 and 3 years decline in life expectancy in humans (Ferrucci, et al.) after controlling for exercise (associated with a 10 year change in life expectancy), this does not associate positively with rat studies seen in earlier reviews in which rats smoking over 20 cigarettes a day outlived non-smokers by 5% and human smoking patterns which mostly match this group. Studies have also shown poverty to have a similar detrimental effect on life expectancy, but will not be counted in this study, as the assumption must be made (lacking proper surveys) that exercise and income are positively correlated.

     There are two ways of approaching this quantitatively, and both will be pursued in this review to check for logical fallacy. Firstly, the assumption can be made that due to an unsupported difference in the pulmonary systems of rats and humans, that tobacco smoke has a detrimental effect on the lifespan of humans and investigation of how this occurs must happen. Secondly, it can be assumed that there are other confounding factors such as air pollution and radioactive exposure which account for greater levels of mortality in certain geographical areas, making tobacco data coincidental (which would be supported by female trends in the UK where lung cancer increased significantly as smoking declined by 50%, as shown in a previous article).

Fine Particulate Matter in Tobacco: enough to cause cancer, early mortality, neither or both?

     The average cigarette delivers 1525 (+-193) (μg/m3) of fine particulate matter (or "tar" on some cigarette warnings) over a period of around 300 seconds (Gerber, et al.), and each puff contains 60 ml  or .00006 m3, and there are around 10-20 puffs on a cigarette (sizes vary from 60 mm to 100 mm in commercially sold products, the 60 mm will be used, as the most commonly used). This means that in a cigarette there is .0006-.0012 m3 of smoke exposure, multiplied by the average 1525 (μg/m3) parts fine particulate matter yielding .72 μg of exposure. This multiplied by an average of 18 (+-8, depending on the state/smoker) cigarettes per day, delivering into the lung between 7 and 25 μg fine particulate matter exposure over the course of a day. This is the equivalent of standing in a closed garage with ten cars running for 30 minutes (Invernizzi et al.) to put it in perspective.

      Is this enough to significantly change the risk for lung cancer or mortality, according to modern studies on air pollution, and assuming all other factors constant? Every 10 μg elevation in atmospheric fine particulate matter is associated with a decrease in life expectancy of .6 years which does fall within the realm of possibility of the decline of one to three years associated with tobacco use after adjustment for exercise mentioned earlier, but fails to explain why rats smoking similar amounts of tobacco lived 5% longer. To understand this, further investigation will be necessary into a couple confounding factors which may explain why tobacco smoke has a greater deleterious effect on humans than rats, when physically the pulmonary systems should react in step with each other.

Ferrucci, Luigi, et al. "Smoking, physical activity, and active life expectancy." American Journal of Epidemiology 149.7 (1999): 645-653.

Gerber, Alexander, et al. "Tobacco smoke particles and indoor air quality (ToPIQ-II)–a modified study protocol and first results." Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 1 (2015): 5.
Invernizzi, Giovanni, et al. "Particulate matter from tobacco versus diesel car exhaust: an educational perspective." Tobacco control 13.3 (2004): 219-221.
Pope III, C. Arden, Majid Ezzati, and Douglas W. Dockery. "Fine-particulate air pollution and life expectancy in the United States." New England Journal of Medicine 360.4 (2009): 376-386.
Zacny, James P., et al. "Human cigarette smoking: effects of puff and inhalation parameters on smoke exposure." Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 240.2 (1987): 554-564.