Male Bonding and Shame Culture: Hitler’s Soldiers and the Moral Basis of Genocidal Warfare

Abstract

Early in October 1941 Captain Friedrich Nöll was given an assignment which caused him grave disquiet. His battalion commander, Major Commichau, ordered him to shoot the entire Jewish population of the village of Krutscha in Russia — men, women and children. In this village to the west of Smolensk, to the rear of the German army, Nöll was in command of the 3rd company of the 1st battalion of the 691st infantry regiment. All three companies of the battalion received similar killing orders. But their leaders reacted in different ways. Lieutenant Kuhls, a member of the Nazi party and the SS, carried out the order with his company without hesitation. The opposite reaction came from Lieutenant Sibille, a teacher aged 47. Alluding to the systematic killing campaigns of the Einsatzgruppen, he told his superior officer that he ‘could not expect decent German soldiers to soil their hands with such things’. He said that his company would only shoot Jews if they were partisans. He had, however, been unable to establish any connection between the Jews and the partisans. The old men, women and children amongst the Jews were, he maintained, no danger to his men, so that there was no military necessity for such a measure. Asked by his superior, when would he finally get tough, he answered: in such cases, never.¹

Translated by Richard Littlejohns