Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Mo_reese]

The majority of German citizens would have voted to continue with the labor camps and killing of Jews, for the same reason they voted Hitler into power in the first place.

I am far from an expert on Germany during WW II but I believe that although most Germans knew about the concentration camps few knew about the death camps which were not on German soil.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Mo_reese,

Thank you for your reply.

I am far from an expert on Germany during WW II but I believe [...] few knew about the death camps which were not on German soil.

Do you have a source for that claim/belief?

The majority of German citizens would have voted to continue with the labor camps and killing of Jews, for the same reason they voted Hitler into power in the first place.

most Germans knew about the concentration camps

Indeed. Nonetheless, my point was more speculative than that fact: I believe, if they had been asked to vote specifically on the issue, the majority of Germans would have voted to continue with the labor camps. Forcing Jewish citizens to do labor (i.e. what I could consider to be the violent enslavement of Jews) was a popular well-liked initiative among the Germans at that time. I'd say it was received more eagerly and happily than the enslavement of black people was in the USA. The average German was just as supportive of the slavery of Jews in Nazi Germany as the average USA citizen was supportive in the enslavement of blacks in American in the 1700s and 1800s.

Interestingly, during WWII times, the term "concentration camp" was a pleasant euphemism, to increase the popularity even further by giving it a pleasant-sounding name. I guess the propagandists figured that everyday people wouldn't like the sound of something like "death-ridden slavery prison".

Of course, we had concentration camps here in the USA too, and, just like the Germans with theirs, the majority of Americans eagerly supported them.

It's not cheap for big violent governments to do their horrendous violence without the support of the majority, so throughout all of human history the horrible violent atrocities committed by any given government were almost always done with the majority support of that government's citizens.

In fact, by no coincidence, the more violent and tyranny the government, the more close unanimous the support of the citizens for that government. Perhaps the surest symptom of tyranny is patriotism. The more violent and tyrannical the government, the more fervently patriotic the citizenry.


Here is a quote from the book, Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness:

Hitler exterminated the Jews of Europe. But he did not do so alone. The task was so enormous, complex, time-consuming, and mentally and economically demanding that it took the best efforts of millions of Germans... All spheres of life in Germany actively participated: Businessmen, policemen, bankers, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, railroad and factory workers, chemists, pharmacists, foremen, production managers, economists, manufacturers, jewelers, diplomats, civil servants, propagandists, film makers and film stars, professors, teachers, politicians, mayors, party members, construction experts, art dealers, architects, landlords, janitors, truck drivers, clerks, industrialists, scientists, generals, and even shopkeepers—all were essential cogs in the machinery that accomplished the final solution.

We know they would not only vote for it but do more than just vote for it because they did do more than just for it: They not only saw the Jewish slaves working in the streets; They helped make the slavery happen and continue to happen with their own hands, literally. It takes a lot more than just SS guards to run that kind of operation with that kind of scale. The average German citizen didn't just see it with their eyes; they helped it happen with their hands, literally.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

[LuckyR]

Again, don't confuse action and outcome. They are not identical. The ACTION of exercising the right to vote does not equate to any potential OUTCOME associated with that vote.

If you consent to the action of surgery, you agree you have been warned about negative surgical complications including the outcome of death, BUT that's NOT equivalent to consenting to being killed.

LuckyR, you didn't answer the question. Please answer the question:

Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?





martin-luther-king-never-forget.png

Absolutely not. In addition, the fact that Jews voted in German elections is subject to the analysis I outlined earlier.

[JackDaydream]

I see the idea of the Nazi torture and genocide as being consensual form of suicide as a very slippery one. It is a way of legitimising and justifying all kinds of atrocities. I know Jews whose families suffered atrocities in Jewish concentration camps and it would be a diabolical argument to say that what happened was consensual.

What I see as being a gross error in the outpost is the comparison between Nazi killing and taxation, as I don't see taxation as theft. That is because it is a way of promoting the wellbeing of all people, whereas the behavior of the Nazis was about causing suffering and extermination. To see all forms of consensus as equal is problematic. It goes against the spirit of Hobbes' picture of the social contract. The idea of consensus in ethics needs differentiation in conception of needs and end rather than skewed generalisations.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?

Absolutely not.

Perfect, I agree.

[jachim01]

The killing of German Jews, as well as millions of others during the Holocaust, was unequivocally murder. The Holocaust was a systematic, state-sponsored genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The victims, including Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, political dissidents, and others, were forcibly taken to concentration camps, ghettos, and extermination camps where they were subjected to inhumane conditions, torture, and mass murder.

These acts were not consensual in any way. The victims were brutally oppressed, deprived of their basic human rights, and murdered against their will. The idea that these killings could be framed as "consensual assisted suicide" is not only factually incorrect but deeply offensive and a distortion of historical truth. The Holocaust was one of the most horrific genocides in history, and its victims were murdered by the Nazi regime.

[Sculptor1]

This is not an argument to invalidate taxation.

[Good_Egg]

The majority of German citizens would have voted to continue with the labor camps and killing of Jews, for the same reason they voted Hitler into power in the first place....

The average German was just as supportive of the slavery of Jews in Nazi Germany as the average USA citizen was supportive in the enslavement of blacks in American in the 1700s and 1800s...

We know they would not only vote for it but do more than just vote for it because they did do more than just for it: They not only saw the Jewish slaves working in the streets; They helped make the slavery happen and continue to happen with their own hands, literally. It takes a lot more than just SS guards to run that kind of operation with that kind of scale. The average German citizen didn't just see it with their eyes; they helped it happen...

Some rapists have been known to argue that their victim gave "tacit consent" by failing to struggle violently enough to be an effective protest.

You seem to be making a similar argument here - that all those ordinary Germans who did not want or intend the Nazi programme but just kept their heads down and hoped that the bullies would somehow go away thereby gave tacit consent.

I don't buy it as an argument. Whether for rape, or the Holocaust, or taxation.

There's a different argument regarding implied consent that goes something like this. At a traditional restaurant, one orders from the menu, eats, and then pays. Someone who orders and eats cannot then reasonably decide that they don't consent to the payment bit.

This argument does not apply to Jews under Nazism. Nazi government held no specific benefit for Jewish people for which their subsequent mass murder was payment.

But it does apply to taxation, where those who have benefitted from government spending on roads, education, defence etc cannot reasonably decide that they don't wish to pay for these benefits that they have received.

So your analogy fails at this point.

Whether people may reasonably decide that they don't consent to pay for foreign wars or boondoggles - if that's the right word in US English - is a point which possibly belongs on a different thread.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

For those like me who agree that taxation is obviously not consensual, then it is clear that likewise the killing of Jews during the holocaust was also likewise obviously not consensual.

Some rapists have been known to argue that their victim gave "tacit consent" by failing to struggle violently enough to be an effective protest.

You seem to be making a similar argument here - that all those ordinary Germans who did not want or intend the Nazi programme but just kept their heads down and hoped that the bullies would somehow go away thereby gave tacit consent.

I have never ever in my life done anything remotely close to making that argument, and the only way I can imagine that you would come to such a drastic extreme misinterpretation to accuse me of believing the exact opposite of what I do is that you didn't read the OP in full. I strongly suggest you read the OP in full before replying to any topic in these forums. (In fact, doing so is required by the Forum Rules.)

The OP makes it very clear that I firmly believe the killing of the Jews in Nazi Germany was not consensual and instead was simply legal murder committed by a government, the most common kind of murder.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

This is not an argument to invalidate taxation.

Please stay on-topic.

The question is: Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?

Answer the question or don't post in this topic. Either choice is fine.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

The killing of German Jews, as well as millions of others during the Holocaust, was unequivocally murder. The Holocaust was a systematic, state-sponsored genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The victims, including Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, political dissidents, and others, were forcibly taken to concentration camps, ghettos, and extermination camps where they were subjected to inhumane conditions, torture, and mass murder.

These acts were not consensual in any way.

I agree 100%.

[Sculptor1]

This is not an argument to invalidate taxation.

Please stay on-topic.

The question is: Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?

Answer the question or don't post in this topic. Either choice is fine.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

I am exactly on topic as well you know.
The claim is to ask whether or not some action of a government has to be consentual, as they are members of that society.
You can chose to apply a black and white response to this to say that the actions of government are never consentual.
This difference comes when a person claims that taxation is not consetual whilst at the same time reaping the benefits of what that taxation has provided such as roads, a educated population, security, fire services ad infinitem.
The argument does not apply to a person whose government wishes to kill them.
So it is bleeding obvious that the vast majority of person would not consent to their own demise, there is no contradiction.
On the other hand if a person who is making money in Germany might complain that he is being asked to pay tax, whilst at the same time his business relies on an educated workforce.

[Good_Egg]

For those like me who agree that taxation is obviously not consensual, then it is clear that likewise the killing of Jews during the holocaust was also likewise obviously not consensual.

Hi Scott.

You've quoted the OP here. Which makes it clear that the parallel between the nonconsensuality of the Nazi treatment of Jews and the nonconsensuality of taxation is part of the topic for discussion. And I joined in because that seems to me something worth talking about.

It may be entirely in keeping with the spirit of philosophy to answer this sort of question by posing a more general question about the meaning of "consent" and then illustrating one's ideas about that with a range of examples.

One of the good things about this site is that in general that sort of relaxed and constructive approach to philosophy is facilitated by a "house style" that doesn't confine discussion to a narrow interpretation of the topic.

Some rapists have been known to argue that their victim gave "tacit consent" by failing to struggle violently enough to be an effective protest.

You seem to be making a similar argument here - that all those ordinary Germans who did not want or intend the Nazi programme but just kept their heads down and hoped that the bullies would somehow go away thereby gave tacit consent.

I have never ever in my life done anything remotely close to making that argument...
...
The OP makes it very clear that I firmly believe the killing of the Jews in Nazi Germany was not consensual....

I apologise for misreading you.

Seems like we all agree that the Jews did not consent to the Holocaust.

Some of your words were about how far the "ordinary Germans" consented to the Holocaust. (I quoted the bits I was responding to).

If you don't believe that ordinary Germans gave "tacit consent", are you in fact arguing that they gave active and wholehearted consent ?

I tend to think that would be a misreading of history. We misunderstand Hitler's rise to power if we think that a majority of Germans wholeheartedly agreed with him.

[Steve3007]

If we're using "murder" as a legal term to mean something along the lines of "unlawful killing of a human" then according to German law at the time (as I understand it), no, it was not murder. If we're using it to mean something like "killing of a human in a way that I consider to be morally unjustified and which would be considered murder in jurisdictions that I consider to be civilized" then yes, it was murder.

I do not believe that taxation is violent robbery and I do believe that the killing of German Jews during the holocaust was murder in the second sense.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

This is not an argument to invalidate taxation.

Please stay on-topic.

The question is: Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?

Answer the question or don't post in this topic. Either choice is fine.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

I am exactly on topic as well you know.
The claim is to ask whether or not some action of a government has to be consentual, as they are members of that society.
You can chose to apply a black and white response to this to say that the actions of government are never consentual.
This difference comes when a person claims that taxation is not consetual whilst at the same time reaping the benefits of what that taxation has provided such as roads, a educated population, security, fire services ad infinitem.
The argument does not apply to a person whose government wishes to kill them.
So it is bleeding obvious that the vast majority of person would not consent to their own demise, there is no contradiction.
On the other hand if a person who is making money in Germany might complain that he is being asked to pay tax, whilst at the same time his business relies on an educated workforce.

You didn't answer the question:

Do you believe the killing of German Jews during the Holocaust was consensual?