Which character LEAST disgusts you?

Hi Div:

I tend to agree with almost everything you said. How's that for being a toady!!

Seriously, I agree with your perspective on Dr. Kritzinger. He did admittedly go along with the others, but I genuinely feel it was the result of direct intimidation by Gen. Heydrich, who made it clear what would happen if he broke ranks: "Oh, you'll answer now, or you'll answer later ...". "You'd be a hard man to bring down, but certainly not impossible ...".

During the early discussions, Kritzinger refers to assurances that (he thinks) were given to the extent that the Jews were being held in liveable conditions. (They weren't of course). He seems (to me) to be one of the participants who actually had a conscience and had no real desire to "eliminate" the Jews. But he was still a senior bureaucrat who was certainly aware of how the Nazi state was systematically removing the Jews from all aspects of German life. He was also an intelligent man who I am sure could see ahead to at least the possibility of state-sanctioned violence against the Jews.

As for Maj. Lange, I am of two minds. The real Lange was a ruthless, ambitious officer wholly without pity for the Jews. However, as portrayed by Barnaby Kay, he comes across as almost likeable/innocent, certainly troubled by both the discussions and the reality of which he was all too aware (in Latvia). He challenges Gen. Heydrich directly (though respectfully) at one point, and of course succumbs to Heydrich's flattery ... "I am a dreamer as I think you are ...".

Are also think Dr. Stuckart is an interesting character. Not sympathetic by any means, but anxious that the lawmakers also respect the law (even the outrageous Nuremberg laws). He is also one of the few to challenge Heydrich, Klopfer and others, at times quite vehemently.

That's it for the nonce. Apologies for typos, etc.

Jeff

What about Neumann of the four-year plan? In spite of him knocking on the table in agreement to everyone else about the Final Solution, you could tell that he really felt iffy and unsure about the whole thing. Stukardt recommended sterilizing the Jews, which to a certain extent was more merciful than slaughtering the whole race, and he was the only member of that meeting to bang his hand on the table, seconding that motion, and then quickly went red-faced and shut up when he quickly found out he was alone. Similar to what the first poster said about Kritzinger and Lange, he fell victim to groupthink, and given his kindness and politeness to everyone, he easily agreed.

He's a victim of his own circumstances. His civility, respect and running-of-the-mouth to everyone makes him an easy target, being disrespected by Hoffman and Klopfer and snapped-at by Heydrich. If he would only stop and think about how clumsy and submissive he was all this time, kissing butt to the higher officials such as Heydrich and such, and signing on to systematically murder an entire race of people, he would be respected on the same humane level as Stukardt and Kritzinger.

I look at kritzneger differntly than you guys. the burden was on him to rise above and not do it cause he obviously knew it was wrong yet he still went along with it.

thats actually worse than someone who is hateful and actually believes a certain race is vermin and should be destroyed.

Lange. This man was clearly haunted by what he'd seen and perpetrated in the East. He came straight from the front, where there was "no silence in Latvia." In contrast to the big talkers like Martin Luther, he knew exactly what a terrible thing it was to kill another human being face to face. It seemed he almost needed absolution from Heydrich, some reassurance that what he was doing was the right thing, and Heydrich gave him that reassurance with his talk of a "peaceful world" after the war. Lange needed to believe there was some point to the horror. But he had already lost too much of his soul because he was really the only man at the table who understood how the "final solution" was going to look, sound and smell. He had become damned.

The ones who, from the very start, wanted to competely wipe out all the jews thought that because they thought it was right and was for the good of mankind, which is better than knowing it's wrong, but not doing anything.

All of the characters disgust me. You see, despite the various means they wished to apply to facilitate it, the goal was the same: the eventual extermination of the entire European Jewish population. Even the "humanitarian" Kritzinger and Stuckart would have had few or no qualms, I imagine, about that goal had it come about by gradual attrition, rather than immediate extermination. These men were, one and all, dedicated anti-Semites who had made millions of people's lives a living (or dying) hell; with that, there is nothing noble or good in anything they said or did, period.

Another point: the entirety of the Nazi program of Jewish genocide was attempted to be kept as secret as possible; the Wannsee conference itself didn't exist for history's sake, to paraphrase Eichmann. Notice the comprehensive methods of keeping its minutes and conclusions controlled, along with the often overt threats from Heydrich and others of the SS. This was a program of mass murder, something all participants knew very well; while they themselves approved of it to varying degrees they recognized most within and without the Third Reich would not, and so believed that the NSDAP's public image would fare better without this horrific blemish...as would their own careers, naturally. From what I've read, most of the Reich's leaders and administrators were in it for themselves; their innate anti-Semitism only helped them in this case, as it would not have had the Weimar Republic continued to exist.

Order from least repulsive to most repulsive:

1. Kritzinger: the only one to have any moral objection
2. Stuckart: he opposed the Final Solution on the grounds that it was "against the law" and would "martyr the Jews", wrong reasons but still forsaw what would happen
3. Lange: most interesting, could go either way; seemed helpless in his role as a soldier and seemed shell-shocked in the beginning from all the killing he had seen ("no silence in Latvia like this"), but also very cold in his manner ("I believe I already evacuated 30,000 Jews")
4. Neumann: lukewarm to the whole idea, wanted to keep the Jews alive for labor at least
5. Hoffman: least was somewhat human and got sick when he heard the details of what the gas vans would do

The rest of them all were more than happy to do the Final Solution, I listed guys like Klopfer, Bueller, Schoengarth and Luther near the top because they were the most pompous and over-joyed to do it. Eichmann was an interesting choice for me because though he was the one who did all the planning, you can see in the scene when he describes the gassing he is getting very uncomfortable at the thought.

Eichmann
Heydrich
Mueller
Meyer
Freisler
Leibrandt
Schoengarth
Bueller
Luther
Klopfer: overweight, pompous, stupid, and bloodthirsty, the most repulsive by far

Lange is a field officer who unlike most of the other "desk murderes" at the meeting has actually participated in mass killings. He seemes very troubled by what he has seen and done yet his role as an officer stops him from disobeying his superior officers. Don't get me wrong, he deserved to be hanged along with all the rest but he was an interesting character, no doubt had all the others experienced what Lange had their views as to the murdering of millions of people may well have been very diffirent.