Such disobedience amounts to a declaration of war against you. Your son is trying to usurp your authority, and you are justified in answering force with force in order to insure his respect, without which you will be unable to train him. The blows you administer should not be merely playful ones but should convince him that you are his master.36
Miller believes that these practices result in a lack of independence in the child, and later, the adult. They also eliminate the psychological freedom necessary to experience one’s own feelings. Instead the wishes and commands of others guide the child and later the adult.
It is inconceivable that they were able to express and develop their true feelings as children, for anger and helpless rage, which they were forbidden to display, would have been among these feelings – particularly if these children were beaten, humiliated, lied to, and deceived. What becomes of this forbidden and therefore unexpressed anger? Unfortunately, it does not disappear, but is transformed with time into a more or less conscious hatred directed against either the self or substitute persons, a hatred that will seek to discharge itself in various ways permissible and suitable for an adult.37
Authoritarian child rearing has not been restricted to Germany.38 But it was extreme in Germany and apparently declined there more slowly because of the cultural proclivity for obedience to authority.
Deep feelings of hostility and insecurity result from such childhood treatment. People are seen as dangerous. A strong, independent individual identity does not evolve. The result may be an antisocial value orientation, which has to be carefully controlled, may be largely unconscious, and gains expression only when the group or authorities clearly define permissible objects of hostility.39 Persons raised in this way may differentiate sharply between outgroups and the ingroup that provides security and self-definition. They also prefer hierarchical systems, with sharp distinctions between people in superior and inferior positions.
Interviews with SS men imprisoned for their participation in mass killings showed that they had unsatisfactory family relations with authoritarian fathers who practiced corporal punishment.40 Research on a larger group of SS men, which I will discuss in Chapter 10, showed that they were more authoritarian in personality than regular German soliders.41
In a postwar study, German preadolescents reported more reluctance than American ones to deviate from adult standards under peer influence. Moreover, they presented themselves as much more obedient to adult rules and guilty about misconduct when a teacher was present while they filled out the questionnaire than they did when alone. In contrast, the presence of a teacher had no effect on American preadolescents.42 Another postwar study, published in 1980, showed fewer German than American infants (or infants of other nationalities) securely attached to their mothers.43 Secure attachment appears to be the outgrowth of a loving, comfortable relationship between infant and caretaker and is later associated with effective and satisfying peer relations. These findings probably result from the persistence of authoritarian schools and socialization practices. German mothers allow their children less autonomy than American mothers.44 German children are more likely to trust authorities and advocate strong leadership than American children.45
The life conditions in Germany after World War I would be difficult to bear for any people, but especially for a people who had learned to value and need strong authorities. The sudden inadequacy of their world view and the group’s inability to provide security, order, and status profoundly threatened Germans.
The influence of Nietzsche
I have already noted trends in German intellectual thought that contributed to the cultural preconditions for genocide. I will discuss others, especially “biomedical thinking,” later. The specific influence of Nietzsche is important: many Nazi beliefs and ideals seem to be highly similar to those expressed by Nietzsche. The following discussion is not a review and evaluation of Nietzsche’s thought or the exact meaning of the views he expressed, about which there is disagreement between “tough Nietzscheans” and “tender Nietzscheans.”46 As Nietzsche himself wrote, people can take from a book only what their experience prepares them for; I will focus on ideas that seem to have influenced Hitler and the Nazis.
In Nietzsche’s view, there are no givens, no absolutes, whether in human nature or by the dictate of God – who is dead. Nietzsche despised the traditions of the past, especially the beliefs and way of life propagated by Christianity, which in his view elevates what is least desirable in humans – vulnerability, timidity and submission that is paraded as love. Humans define and create themselves. Values are relative; man needs culture and must create it, together with the values the culture is to fulfill. The capacity to generate culture and to produce and impose values distinguishes humans. While producing values and faith in them and commitment to them are themselves central values, Nietzsche does not directly say what is “desirable,” what are the right values. Some are implied, however, in his views of human beings, society, and human relations.
The creation of values requires creative, committed, strong men. The clash of cultures is inevitable and each will strive to assert its values in the only possible way, that is, by overcoming others. Wars are inevitable and desirable. All this requires special men (noble men, or supermen), who constitute a small aristocracy. Only they have the requisite qualities.
Nietzsche regarded ordinary human beings as “botched and bungled” and had no objection to their pain and suffering. He did not believe in equality in any respect. True virtue can be characteristic only of the aristocratic minority. Strength of will and the will to power are outstanding virtues. Compassion and weakness are to be combatted. He writes about slave-morality and master-morality. What happens to the mass of people is of no consequence; only what happens to the superior few counts. “The object is to attain the enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which
