During the Nuremberg Trials that opened on November 20, 1945, six months after the war’s end.
Charges of crimes against humanity were read out against 24 of the highest-ranking Nazis then in captivity. The Americans instructed a panel of psychologists to conduct extensive interviews and tests with the defendants. Such horrific crimes were committed surely by damaged men, men different in some fundamental way from the rest of humanity.
Among the defendants examined was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz. Unlike the others held in Nuremberg, Höss had been intimately involved in the design and day-to-day operations of the extermination camps.
First he was visited by Gustave Gilbert.
When asked how it was possible to kill so many people. “Technically,” answered Höss, “that wasn’t so hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.” “At the time there were no consequences to consider. It didn’t occur to me that I would be held responsible. You see, in Germany it was understood that if something went wrong, then the man who gave the orders was responsible.”
Gilbert asked, “But what about the human—” before Höss answered “That just didn’t enter into it.” “Even while I was doing the extermination work, I led a normal family life.”
Gilbert concluded after the interview that there was an "insensitivity, and lack of empathy that could hardly be more extreme in a frank psychotic.”
Days later, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, Major Leon Goldensohn, came to visit Rudolf Höss.and he said to him "It was Hitler who ordered it through Himmler and it was Eichmann who gave me the orders regarding transports.”
Rudolf Höss’ testimony was reported around the world. The New York Times described it as the “crushing climax to the case.
A few days later, Rudolf Höss was handed to the Polish authorities to face his own trial and was hung on the gallows next to the old crematorium in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The conclusion of the psychologists and psychiatrists at Nuremberg was clear: they both decided that though Rudolf Höss and others were intelligent, they were lacking empathy.
Captain Hanns Alexander, a British soldier, who had arrested expected Höss to be a monster and was surprised to find him to appear “normal.”
This can happen to anybody. Any who have suffered low self Esteem, or bullied. But it can equally apply to those who do the bullying and generally are self-centered.
Injustices, either perceived or just plain imagined can foster anger, hatred and contempt. Be it in grade school or the workplace.
On a ball-field or a battle-field. De-humanize others based on race, color, creed, gender, nationality or the colors and clothes they wear can gradually give way to empathy and one that sets in,... killing becomes easier.
That is why the Bible warns against the deeds of the flesh in Gal 5:19
But Christians are encouraged to love one's neighbor. Mark 12:31
And as for one perceived or imagined to be an enemy,.. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. " Rom 12:20