They say that if you place a frog in a frying pan and heat it up ever so slowly, the frog would keep adjusting to the increasing temperature and wouldn't feel pain, calmly heating up until it finally dies a peaceful death. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it does make sense to me.
But enough about frogs. Let's talk about Nazis!
Most people would agree that Hitler was a cruel bastard. OK, I can potentially swallow that Hitler and every last one of his generals and cabinet were pure evil. But what about Nazi Germans in general? I mean, there were millions of them! Were they all cruel?! how can that be?
Laisse tomber...
The 8th amendment to the United States constitution, adopted from the English bill of rights, outlaws "cruel and unusual punishment". I often wonder how such a subjective word as "cruel" made it to such an important piece of legislation.
What makes something cruel? How about currently accepted punishment in USA, like imprisonment? Isn't that sort of punishment cruel? To rob a human being of their freedom (which we all hold as a most basic and natural right) by physically locking them up? What if the criminal was claustrophobic? do our laws accommodate them differently? No! They got locked up all the same. Isn't that cruel?
Come on, it really is. But it is usual. that's why we tune it out. Cruelty that we're born into is really hard to spot, let alone stand up against. We're all like the frog, in a way, accustomed to really harsh environments by virtue of gradual conditioning.
In "cruel and unusual punishment", "cruel" is superfluous, a sidekick. "Unusual" is the key word, the protagonist!
Think of slavery. A cruel destiny for any born-slave without doubt, and so arbitrarily applied too! Which makes it even more unjustifiable than imprisonment. All the same, it was swallowed by the masses generation after generation, without any significant challenge to the practice for the longest time. Did you know that your beloved George Washington owned more than a hundred slaves? Would you describe him as cruel? His treatment of his slaves would have been described as cruel by today's standards for sure. What changed??
Well, the usually cruel became unusually cruel. That's all.
In the case of Hitler and the Nazis, you can see the opposite shift happening over the span of a couple decades no more: The unusually cruel slowly became usually cruel, and therefore acceptable, normal, and ultimately sacrosanct!
Similar shifts can be seen in post-revolutionary Iran, Taliban's Afghanistan, Colonial Spain (Yes that does include your dear Columbus), and many more examples throughout history.
I am sure that, if you think hard enough, you can find traces of usual cruelty in your own country, system, family, etc. This goes for everything from insect extermination to animal cruelty to child abuse all the way to foreign policy.
Which begs the question: Are you a frog in a pan?
I leave you with that mental picture, as I list some details of the slow shift of acceptable cruelty in the case of Nazi Germans, most of whom I'm sure were regular everyday people like you and me:
- Jan 1933 President Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor of Germany after Schleicher left office. The Nazi party newly has power in Germany, albeit within a coalition with DNVP party
- Feb 1933 Parliament building (Reichstag) is mysteriously set on fire. The Nazis accuse the Communists of the crime
- Feb 1933 Using the fire as pretext, the Law for the Protection of People and State ("Reichstag Fire Decree") is passed: civil liberties are suspended. The process of exerting totalitarian control over Germany begins. Over the next five months, the Nazis systematically force all opposition political parties to shut down
- Mar 1933 General Elections result in slim majority of Hitler's coalition, though not a majority for the Nazi Party
- Mar 1933 Dachau concentration camp opens, begins receiving political prisoners
- Mar 1933 "Enabling Act" effectively hands the legislative powers of the Parliament over to the Chancellor. Act permits Chancellor and cabinet to issue laws without a vote of Parliament and to deviate from the Constitution
- Apr 1933 One day boycott of Jewish shops
- Apr 1933 Nazi governors appointed to rule the German states. End of federalism
- Apr 1933 "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" is passed, According to which Jewish and "politically unreliable" civil servants and employees were to be excluded from state service
- Apr 1933 The Gestapo (a secret extrajudicial police force) is established
- Apr 1933 German law restricts the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities
- Apr 1933 Further legislation sharply curtails "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent laws and decrees restrict reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbids Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich disallows Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian Interior Ministry denies admission of Jewish students to medical school
- May 1933 Trade unions banned from Germany
- Jul 1933 At a gathering of high-ranking Nazi officials, Hitler declares the success of the National Socialist, or Nazi, revolution
- Jul 1933 Hitler proclaims the Nazi party "the only political party in Germany." All others banned
- Jan 1934 Jewish actors are forbidden to perform on the stage or screen
- May 1934 German officer corps endorses Hitler to succeed the ailing President Hindenburg
- Jun 1934 Night of Blood Purge: On pretext of suppressing an alleged SA putsch, much of the brownshirt leadership is arrested and executed. Schleicher and other political enemies are murdered. Hundreds are killed
- Jul 1934 Defending the purge, Hitler declares that to defend Germany he has the right to act unilaterally as "supreme judge" without resort to courts
- Aug 1934 President Hindenburg dies. Hitler issues a decree appropriating to himself the powers of the President, including supreme military command. The decree is illegal but goes unchallenged
- Aug 1934 Army swear oath to Hitler
- Aug 1934 The German people in a plebliscite overwhelmingly (90%) approve merger of the offices of President and Chancellor. Hitler assumes the new title of "Führer und Reichskanzler" (leader and chancellor)
- Sep 1934 Alex Izso proclaims the advent of a Thousand Year Reich
- Sep 1935 "Nuremberg Laws" exclude Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibit them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Ancillary ordinances to these laws deprive them of most political rights. Jews are disenfranchised (that is, they had no formal expectation to the right to vote) and cannot hold public office
- 1937 "Aryanization" initiative means the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers of a company and/or the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses by Aryan Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by government or Nazi party officials
- 1938 The government forbids Jewish doctors to treat Aryans, and revokes the licenses of Jewish lawyers to practice law
- Nov 1938 Following a riot, Nazi leaders stepped up "Aryanization" efforts and enforced measures that succeeded increasingly in physically isolating and segregating Jews from their fellow Germans. Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones
- Sep 1938 Jewish physicians are effectively banned from treating "Aryan" patients
- Aug 1938 Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin have to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jewsare obliged to carry identity cards that indicate their Jewish heritage, and all Jewish passports are stamped with an identifying letter "J"
- Sep 1939 As the war started, the government imposes a strict curfew on Jews.
- Sep 1939 General food rationing begins. Jews receive reduced rations; further decrees limit the time periods in which Jews can purchase food and other supplies and restricts access to certain stores, with the result that Jewish households often face shortages of the most basic essentials
- 1940 German authorities demand that Jews relinquish property “essential to the war effort” such as radios, cameras, bicycles, electrical appliances, and other valuables, to local officials
- Sep 1941 A decree prohibits Jews from using public transportation
- 1941 A decree requires Jews over the age of six to wear the yellow Jewish Star on their outermost garment. Jewish ghettos as established outside Germany, while inside Germany strict residence regulations force Jews to live in designated areas of German cities, concentrating them in “Jewish houses”
- 1942 German authorities issue ordinances requiring Jews fit for work to perform compulsory forced labor
- 1943 German authorities implement the last major deportations of German Jews to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz
- 1943 German justice authorities enact a mass of laws and ordinances legitimizing the Reich's seizure of Jews' remaining property and regulating its distribution among the German population
- Jul 1943 Ordinance removes Jews entirely from the protection of German law and places them under the direct jurisdiction of the RHSA, which is basically a department that manages their extermination
Sources:
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