ABSTRACT
It does not require a very close look at the Holocaust literature to realize that the perpetrators of such atrocities were not all crude, semi-literate thugs and criminals. This was true of many of the actual torturers and executioners, but not of those who planned and promoted the extermination programmes. The question that is begged therefore is, what made them do it? Actually, there are two problems here. There is the fundamental problem as to why certain intellectuals were attracted to the Nazi ideology in general and the SS in particular and, by extension, the more ‘practical’ problem of how it came about that they were prepared to operationalize that ideology in lethal terms.
