Nazism and the Western Conscience
I offer here a scale of moral responsibility applicable to members of the Nazi Reich during the Final Solution: (1) oblivious: totally unaware, simply out to lunch or mentally impaired concerning the Nazi attempted genocide of the Jews, invincibly ignorant and without bad faith; (2) bystanding: aware but mute and passive, perhaps in bad faith or denial, concerning the Nazi attempted genocide of the Jews; (3) complicit: aware and publicly and privately supportive of the Nazi attempted genocide of the Jews, but primarily verbally or symbolically; (4) aiding and abetting: aware and more than verbally supportive, actively assisting and participating in the Nazi attempted genocide of the Jews, but short of pulling the trigger or dropping the gas pellets or ordering the same; and (5) directly murderous unto abomination: actually pulling the trigger or dropping the gas pellets or ordering the same, so as knowingly to aim at destroying the Jews as a race and Judaism as a moral and religious creed; in the extreme, also to aim at destroying one’s own conscience.