Mass Killings in History: The Killers

NAZI genocide
Figure 1.--When the subject of mass killing and genocide comes up, one usually thinks about the NAZI war on the Jews--the Holocaust. And almost incomprehensively, it was only the first step in mass murder that the NAZIs were planning to remake the ethnic map of Europe. Here Hungarian Jews newly arrived at Auschwitz in 1944 are passing in front of crematorium III on their way to the gas chamber at crematorium II. We do not see the two SS men behind the camera that recorded this process. We do not get the idea from the images that these two individuals wanted to torture Jews, but rather to kill them as quickly as possible. They seem as our reader suggests clerks who believed that they were participating in a great campaign to advance civilization. Thus they compiled a photographic album to record their participation in a historic achievenment.

The four most deadly regimes in world history were the 20th century totalitatrians (Soviets, NAZIs, Japanese militarists, and Chinese Communists). The Soviets and NAZIs industrialized the killing process. The killing was carried out by a suprising small numbers of individuals giving the body count. While we often do not know a great deal about the killers in genocidal programs before the 20th century, we do know a great deal about the killers during the 20th century. A Russian reader offers an insightful description. "I think both Stalin and Hitler looked for absolutely controllable, obedient professional staffers for their ideas. If Beria hadn't been a good performer, then Stalin would have removed him, as he did many before him. If Eichmann hadc demured in carrying out his assignment, than Hitler and Himmler would have found another Eichmann. These people didn't ask questions, they clicked their heels and said, "Yes, sir." They used all their talents and energy to perform ANY tasks the Leader assigned with maximum quality and effectiveness. They were not monsters, but ideal clerks. They equally good could have organized planting trees and flowers in some park or killing millions of people in some pit." We think our reader has succintly described many if not most of the killers. We do think, however, that not all of the killers were clerks and in this semce see some differences between the NAZIs and Soviets.

Deadly 20th Century Regimes

The four most deadly regimes in world history were the 20th century totalitatrians (Soviets, NAZIs, Japanese militarists, and Chinese Communists). The Soviets and NAZIs industrialized the killing process. The killing was carried out by a suprising small numbers of individuals giving the body count.

Soviet Communism

The Bolsheviks who seized power in Russian in 1917 may be resonsible for the greatest number of deaths of any group. Estimates exceed 60 million, but are highly controversial. Lenin began the process. He oversaw the creation of concentration camps for political opponent. Trials were dispensed with as hopelessly Bourgeois. It was Stalin who greatly expanded the camp system, creating the Gulag. Stalin saw the Gulag as aay of developing Soviet resources that was difficult to so with free labor. Arrests were made in unprecedated numbers. Many were simply shot. Those not shot were committed to the Gulag. Some of this was done on an individual basis. The Great Purges are a classical example of the use of terror. Other actions were taken against whole national groups. Stalin generated a famine as part of his collectivizatiion program to smash the peasantry--especially the Ukranian peasantry. Other groups targeted were the Baltic peoples, Chechans, Poles, Tatars, Volga Germans, and many others. At the time of his death, Stalin was planning a major action against the Jews.

NAZI Germany (1939-45)

The NAZI engineered Holocaust of the Jews is the best documented example of mass murder in history. This is because the NAZIs lost the World War II and the copious records they took along with the testimony of individuals conducting the Holocust and their surviving victims have left us with a chilling historical record. The NAZI Holocaust succeeded in killing about 6 million Jews. This was not the largest instance of mass murder in history, but is perhaps the most horific because of the way the SS industrialized the killing process. Less well understood is the fsct tht if the NAZIs had succedded in would have been only the first chapter in a terrifying rengineering of the Human race. High on the NAZI list of untermench were the Slavs of Eastern Rurope. The NAZIs killed many more people than Jews in their preliminary efforts to build a new German empire in the Occupied East. There was also the Lebensborn program aimed at children. In all the NAZIs probably killed more than 20 million people. The NAZI penchant for killing was such that they killed millions of people who could have assisted in their war effort. And as a result, before the Allies destroyed German industry in the strategic bombing campaign, there was a severe labor shortage in the Reich.

Imperial Japan

Japan began empire building by seizing Taiwan (Formosa) from China (1895). Korea was made a colony and Korean nationalism and language brutally suppressed (1905). Large-scale killings began when Japan seized Manchuria (1931) and even mokre so when they invaded China (1937). It is in China where most of the Japanese killings took place. The most noted example was the Rape of Nanking (1937) and the reprisals after the Dolittle Raid (1942). In addition to shootings and other executions, the Japanese used germ warfare on the Chinese. After the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) the Japanese seized most of Southeast Asia and their brutal rule was accompanied with many attrocities and civilian deaths. The most glaring example was the use of civilan and POW slave labor which because of mistreatment and starvation diets resulted in great loss of life. There wee also many attrocities perpetrated in civilians by the Japanese during the War outside of china. The most galring exampl here was tge Rape of Manila (1945). Estimates vary as to number of people killed by the Japanese, but the total may exceed 10 million.

Communist China

Most lists of 20th century villans almost always place Hitler and Stalin at the top. Sometimes Mao Tse Tung is not even included, very rarely is he at the top. But if one uses bidy count as the metric for evil, Mao should surely be at the top of the list. And it is no accident that Communists occupy two of the three top places. The Communists in China were responsible for killings of massive numbers of people. Here Mao was primarily responsibe. Many of those killed were individuals from targeted economic and social classes such as land owners, army officers, police, government officials, and others. The first large-scale killings took place shortly after Mao seized powe with the Communist victory in the Civil War (1949). The killings were acrried out as part of the land reform and campaign against counter revolutionaries. Mao envisaged that "one-tenth of the peasants" (about 50 million people) "would have to be destroyed" to facilitate agrarian reform. [Goldhagen, p. 344.] In paractice far few people were killed when Mao seized power, but the numbers of peasants, mostly land owners including some of China's best farmers, are widely estimated to have exceeded 1 million people. [Rummel, p. 223.] The counter-revolutionaries Mao went after were mostly officials of the Kuomintang who did not flee to Taiwan. Also targeted were intellectuals suspected for some reason or other of disloyalty. [Mosher, PP. 72-73.] Here precise numbers do not exist, but estimates suggest about 0.7 million people were executed, 1.3 million were interned in labor camps, and 1.3 million were subject to some kind of control. [Kuisong] Much larger numbers died horrible deaths because of economic mismanagement and resulting famine especially resulting from Mao's Great Leap Forward. Unlike the famine introduced in the Ukraine, these were unintended deaths, at least the initial plans for Mao's Great Leap. Mao believed his own propanganda. He was going to thrust China into a new era by his visionary policies. With they failed abjectly, famine resulted which then provided the opportunity to destroy class enenies. Here individuals believed to be the least loyal (priests, land owners, middle class families, ect.) were given lower rations than others. [Valentino, p. 128.] The death toll may have reached 45 million people, but estimates vary and there is no precise count available. The Great People's Prolatarian Cultural Revolution was the final episode in Mao's sad chapter. Summary executions and death due to torture and mistreamentment totaled about 2.5 million people. [Dikötter] Estimates of the total number people who died as a result of Mao's rule to over 50 million people.

Clerks

While we often do not know a great deal about the killers in genocidal programs before the 20th century, we do know a great deal about the killers during the 20th century. A Russian reader offers an insightful description. "I think both Stalin and Hitler looked for absolutely controllable, obedient professional staffers for their ideas. If Beria hadn't been a good performer, then Stalin would have removed him, as he did many before him. If Eichmann hadc demured in carrying out his assignment, than Hitler and Himmler would have found another Eichmann. These people didn't ask questions, they clicked their heels and said, "Yes, sir." They used all their talents and energy to perform ANY tasks the Leader assigned with maximum quality and effectiveness. They were not monsters, but ideal clerks. They equally good could have organized planting trees and flowers in some park or killing millions of people in some pit." We think our reader has succintly described many if not most of the killers.

NAZI-Soviet Differences

We do think, however, that not all of the killers were clerks and in this sense see some differences between the NAZIs and Soviets, although I grant that there is a fine line.

Conception

It seems to me that Stalin conceived of many of the actions while the leading NAZI war criminals were more likeky to bring projects to Hitler. Not to say that Hitler did not want people killed, but I think he was less proactive than Stalin. And he caused considerable unrest within the NAZI Party, especially the SA, when he refused to move decisively agauinst the Jews after seizing power (1933). And after the War began, he restrained Himmler's projects in Poland against the Poles because it was disrupting preparations for Barbarossa. Our knowledge of the Soviet Union is more limited, but we know iof no individual who brought projects like starving the Ukranian peasantry to Stalin. This seems to have been a product of Stalin's own dark mind.

Character

It seems to us that the Soviet NKVD and Party activists were precisely as our reader describes them, clerks. And some of the NAZIs were of the same ilk, happy to carry out instructions, be they plant flowers or kill. Eichmann here was a good example. But some of the NAZIs absolutely hated Jews and or Slavs and wanted ti kill as many as possible. They would not have been happy planting flowers. Odious men like SS-Brigadeführer (Major-General) Odilo Globocnik or SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich woukld not have been happy planting flowers.

Children

A special concern for HBC is children. Stalin surely killed children along with adults during the collectivization campaign/famine and the deportations during the World war II era. These events are not as well publicized as the NAZI Holocaust, but they occurred and were horific. The Ukranian police were ordered to pick up starving peasant children that had managed to reach the cities looking for food. They were taken to barrackswhere they would starve to death out of site. One report notes that in Kharkiv (Kharkov) about 20,000 children awaited their death in a filty, crowded baracks at any given time. The children still with some strength left pleaded to be allowed to die in the open air rather than the sqalid 'death barracks'. [Snyder, pp. 22-23.] But Stalin did not target children like the NAZIs did. At Auschwitz and other camps the children and elderly were immediately killed. Here we see the children and their mothers on the way to the NAZI gas chambers (figure 1). Healthy women were selected for labor, but if they had children they were sent to the gas chambers with them to minamize disruptions during the selection process. With the millions Stalin killed it was the adults shot or sent to the Gulag, not the children. The children of those arrested might be stimatized socially, but they were not killed.

Sources

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (Basic Books: New York, 2010), 524p.






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Created: 5:56 AM 6/15/2011
Last updated: 4:53 AM 11/26/2013