Rational Means and Irrational Ends: Thoughts on the Technology of Racism in the Third Reich
1997 ◽
Vol 30
(3)
◽
pp. 386-402
◽
Keyword(s):
Among the most haunting features of the culture of murder created by the Nazis are the ruthless efficiency and sheer scale of their success in killing millions of human beings. There are those who link both to the earlier efficiency and scale of death in the titanic and grinding battles of the Great War. And there are others who would associate both with the alternatives of quick or lingering death promised by nuclear war. Efficiency and scale seem common to the mass death produced or proposed in the twentieth century, and many observers view both as attributes of the process of modernity.