very long time,
the immediate cause of the pathological hatred of the Jewish people in Germany
was the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth. It is important to note that this myth, in
turn, was born out of the illusion of national and racial superiority that had
foundered in the trenches of the First World War. Not only had the Germans lost
the war in 1918; they had subsequently been humiliated by the Allied nations at
Versailles, with significant loss of territory, forced demilitarization, and
crippling financial reparations. That sense of injured pride was the germ of a
new, more sinister myth. If victory in the war had rightfully belonged to
Germany, but they had lost anyway, then there was only one possible
explanation: the Jews. If only those filthy vermin had not betrayed them and
sabotaged the German war efforts, then ofor eliminated. The architects
of the Final Solution, as well as many members of the SS Einsatzgruppen carrying out
the systematic extermination of the Jewish race, were moral idealists, firmly
convinced that they were doing the right thing. This point is developed in a
brilliant (but disturbing) way in Jonathan
Littell’s historical novel Les Bienveillants, which gives the reader
the perspective of the Nazi perpetrator without interruption for more than 900
pages. Naturally, explains the main character, it was an unpleasant job to
shove women and children into a ditch and shoot them in the head, but if the
Master Race carried out its job dutifully and thoroughly, the world would be
liberated from a greater evil. The mechanism of cognitive dissonance that I
mentioned earlier also played a role in entrenching anti-Semitic beliefs and
justifying these atrocities. Those who