EP28 Superhumanly Inhuman

Episode Overview

• The episode provides an emotional and historical primer on the Holocaust, aiming to re-inject the visceral horror into a topic that can become academic over time.
• It explores the ideological underpinnings of Nazism, including its co-opting of left-wing propaganda, its core philosophy of Social Darwinism, and its view of a global "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy.
• The narrative details the evolution of the Nazi killing methods, contrasting the personal brutality of the "Holocaust by bullets" with the industrialized, impersonal cruelty of the gas chambers, and examines the psychological toll on the perpetrators.
• Ultimately, the episode argues that the key lesson of the Holocaust is not about left-vs-right politics but about the universal danger of unchecked extremist power, which begins with the dehumanization of a targeted group.

Key Concepts

• Nazi Ideology and Propaganda: The Nazis deliberately used the symbols and language of their left-wing rivals (e.g., the color red, the term "comrade") as a strategic tool to provoke confrontation and attract supporters, while their core belief was a racial, Social Darwinist philosophy, not an economic one.
• The "Holocaust by Bullets": A significant portion of the genocide was carried out through face-to-face mass shootings into pits by Einsatzgruppen, police battalions, and local collaborators, a method characterized by its direct and brutal nature.
• The Industrialization of Murder: The shift to gas chambers was motivated largely by a desire to ease the psychological trauma and "insulate" the German perpetrators from the horror of their actions, turning mass murder into a more bureaucratic and efficient process.
• Psychology of Perpetrators: The episode explores the varied mindsets of the killers, which ranged from soldiers who were deeply traumatized and committed suicide to others who participated sadistically in "execution tourism," driven by a desire for "unpunished inhumanity."
• Shared Complicity: Despite official prohibitions, German soldiers took hundreds of thousands of photographs of the atrocities, which were then shared with families back home, creating a widespread, shared knowledge and complicity throughout German society.
• The Danger of Dehumanization: A central theme is that the critical first step toward atrocity is the use of dehumanizing language, which recasts a group of people as "vermin" or a "disease," making their extermination seem logical and necessary.
• Extremism vs. Ideology: The ultimate lesson is framed not as a conflict between left and right, but as the danger of unchecked power and extremism in any form. A healthy society is defined by its adherence to central principles like human rights, civil liberties, and checks on power.

Quotes

• At 3:09 - "To try to re-inject the emotion back into the story before the interview starts and maybe sort of reconstitute, if you will, the dried blood a little bit." - Carlin explains his intent to convey the visceral horror of the subject matter before the formal interview segment.
• At 1:07:04 - "'I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair who as she passed close to me pointed to herself and said, '23'.'" - A chilling detail from Hermann Graebe’s eyewitness account, highlighting the youth of the victims and the personal horror of the systematic slaughter.
• At 94:55 - "I was always appalled by shootings, particularly when I thought of the women and children. Now I was relieved that we were going to be spared these bloodbaths..." - A direct quote from Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, revealing his primary concern was for the executioners, not the victims.
• At 1:10:37 - "Like basalt pillars the dead stand inside, pressed together in the chambers. In any event, there was no space to fall down or even to bend forward. Even in death one can still tell the families; they still hold hands, tensed in death." - SS officer Kurt Gerstein's haunting description of the scene inside the gas chamber after the victims had died.
• At 128:36 - "When we begin to dehumanize our fellow human beings, when we begin to turn them into something that's not seen as a person... you begin to open the door to having these human beings treated as whatever you're referring to them as. I mean if they're vermin, what do you do to vermin?" - The speaker’s final warning that the language of dehumanization is the first step toward justifying atrocities.

Takeaways

• The evolution of Nazi killing methods from mass shootings to gas chambers was driven primarily by the need to protect the psychological well-being of the perpetrators, not to improve efficiency.
• The path to genocide begins with the language of dehumanization, which reframes mass murder as a logical act of "purification" or self-preservation against a perceived threat like "vermin" or a "contaminant."
• The true danger to any society is not a specific left or right ideology, but the rise of extremism and unchecked power that erodes foundational principles like human rights and checks and balances.
• Knowledge of atrocities can create broad complicity; in Nazi Germany, forbidden photos of massacres were widely circulated by soldiers among their families, spreading awareness and responsibility far beyond the direct perpetrators.