{"id":7910,"date":"2022-11-10T18:13:12","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T00:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7910"},"modified":"2023-03-22T21:56:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T02:56:02","slug":"mfdj-11-10-2022-the-stress-of-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7910","title":{"rendered":"MFDJ 11\/10\/2022: The Stress of Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Unendurable\u00a0Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n

The severe psychological obstacles experienced by the\u00a0Einsatzgruppen<\/em>\u00a0troops in carrying out face-to-face killing were known to Nazi leaders.\u00a0 As Rudolf H\u00f6ss\u00a0later recalled:<\/p>\n

I had heard Eichmann\u2019s description of Jews being mown down by the Einsatzkommandos armed with machine guns and machine pistols.\u00a0 Many gruesome scenes are said to have taken place, people running away after being shot, the finishing off of the wounded and particularly of the women and children.\u00a0 Many members of the Einsatzkommandos, unable to endure wading through blood any longer, had committed suicide.\u00a0 Some had even gone mad.\u00a0 Most of the members of these Kommandos had to rely on alcohol when carrying out their horrible work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe poor dears, troubled by their “work”.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the fall of 1941, one of the leading\u00a0Einsatzgruppen<\/em>\u00a0generals, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, stunned Himmler by declaring to him, after they had witnessed the killing of about one hundred Jews: \u201cLook at the eyes of the men in this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are!\u00a0 These men are finished for the rest of their lives.\u00a0 What kind of followers are we training here?\u00a0 Either neurotics or savages!\u201d\u00a0 And Bach-Zelewski himself was to feel the effects: hospitalized with severe stomach and intestinal ailments, he experienced, according to Dr. Ernst Robert Grawtiz, chief SS doctor, \u201cPsychic exhaustion\u201d and \u201challucinations connected with the shootings of Jews\u201d he instigated and \u201cgrievous other experiences in the East\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMore bad dreams for the Einsatzkommandos.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a consequence, as H\u00f6ss\u00a0explained, only gas was seriously considered for mass killing, \u201csince it would have been absolutely impossible by shooting to dispose of the large numbers of people that were expected, and it would have placed too heavy a burden on the SS men who had to carry it out, especially because of the women and children among the victims.\u201d\u00a0 Inevitably, they turned to earlier Nazi experience with gassing, and Eichmann familiarized\u00a0H\u00f6ss\u00a0with the \u201ceuthanasia\u201d project\u2019s use of carbon monoxide gas released through showerheads.\u00a0 But the method was inadequate for large numbers of people because of the great amount of gas and the many installations with gas chambers that would be required.\u00a0 Mobile gassing units used in the East had similar limitations.\u00a0 Hence, \u201cEichmann decided to try and find a gas which was in ready supply and which would not entail special installations for its use.\u201d\u00a0 As late as November 1941, Eichmann and\u00a0H\u00f6ss\u00a0had not yet discovered a suitable gas, though the camp commandant had chosen an isolated Auschwitz site for the killing \u2013 a former peasant farmstead, which was made into the gas chamber Bunker I.\u00a0 They had not yet thought of burning the corpses, and the site\u2019s meadows allowed long pits for burials.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nBunker I at Auschwitz<\/em><\/p>\n

On one of H\u00f6ss’s trips away from Auschwitz in August 1941, his deputy, SS Captain Karl Fritzch, \u201con his own initiative\u201d conducted successful experiments with Zyklon-B (the German trade name for hydrogen cyanide or prussic acid) on Russian prisoners of war on Block 11, the punishment block.\u00a0 Zyklon-B \u201cwas constantly used in Auschwitz for the destruction of vermin, and there was consequently always a supply of these tins of gas on hand.\u201d\u00a0 Hoss joined in on repetitions of the experiment on his return, observing the killing while wearing a gas mask, and noting that death came very quickly; although he later claimed, \u201cDuring this first experience of gassing people, I did not fully realize what was happening perhaps because I was too impressed by the whole procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nZyklon-B canisters.<\/em><\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0The Nazi Doctors<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Death Scene Du Jour!<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDecember 7, 1953<\/p>\n

Two photographs related to the murder of an Anoka County, Minnesota sheriff’s deputy in December 1953 demonstrate the unblinking style of the times.\u00a0 The deputy Ernest Zettergren was shot and killed with his own gun after struggling with a burglar he’d surprised at four o’clock in the morning outside a tavern in Fridley.\u00a0 His body, slumped over the front seat of his squad car above a pool of blood, wasn’t discovered until three hours later by two boys on their way to school.<\/p>\n

It’s not surprising that the photographer took this picture, but it is something of a surprise that police investigators permitted one of their own to be so cruelly depicted in death.\u00a0 The photograph ran in at least one edition of the\u00a0Pioneer Press<\/em>\u00a0the next morning but did not appear in the final city edition.\u00a0 Perhaps someone had second thoughts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHowever, this photograph of Zettergren’s wife and six children did run in the\u00a0Pioneer Press<\/em>.\u00a0 It shows the grieving family looking at a newspaper account of the murder.\u00a0 Family members were also interviewed for a story in which they described their pain and loss.\u00a0 One can only wonder whether the family saw the bloody photograph of Zettergren published in the early edition and what their reaction might have been.<\/p>\n

Zettergren’s killer was found within hours of the murder.\u00a0 The deputy had called in the license plate number of a car parked near the tavern moments before his death.\u00a0 The auto was quickly traced to an ex-convict named Francis W. Anderson, of Minneapolis.\u00a0 Anderson soon confessed, saying he’d shot Zettergren point blank after grabbing his revolver.\u00a0 “It was a cold-blooded killing.\u00a0 It was no accident,” Anderson supposedly told the police.\u00a0 His own days were numbered.\u00a0 After being convicted of first-degree murder, Anderson hanged himself in his cell at Stillwater State Prison on January 31, 1954.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0Strange Days, Dangerous Nights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Unendurable\u00a0Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The severe psychological obstacles experienced by the\u00a0Einsatzgruppen\u00a0troops in carrying out face-to-face killing were known to Nazi leaders.\u00a0 As Rudolf H\u00f6ss\u00a0later recalled: I had heard Eichmann\u2019s description of Jews being mown down by the Einsatzkommandos armed with machine guns and machine pistols.\u00a0 Many gruesome scenes are said to have taken place, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-ghastly"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7910"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8370,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7910\/revisions\/8370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}