Richard Koenigsberg, "The Logic of War and Genocide"

Orion Anderson writes:
"Richard Koenigsberg’s paper on the logic of war and genocide is available for the first time as an on-line publication."

"Dying For One's Country:
The Logic of War and Genocide"

Richard Konigsberg

As the Final Solution began, Hitler professed to be undisturbed by the extermination of men, women, and children. He explained: “If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without regret for the shedding of valuable German blood, then I have naturally the right to destroy millions of men of inferior races who increase like vermin.” If he was permitted as national leader to send his own soldiers to die in war, why should he have compunction about sending the mortal enemies of the German people — Jews — to their deaths?

If we understand war as a sacrificial ritual that requires shedding the blood of one’s own people, then the Holocaust is no longer “incomprehensible.” Genocide represents an extension of the logic of war, enlarging the pool of sacrificial victims. If German soldiers were required to “die for the country,” why should Jews be exempt?"

The whole article is

here"