Gitta Sereny - Who was Franz Stangl? (3/20) 

I’m reading it now,an absolutely fascinating insight into what took place and other peoples involvement

It happened before the Nazis. It's happened after the Nazis. It's not all that rare a phenomenon. We just like to convince ourselves that it is.

It would have been fascinating to listen to for sure, but I would assume technological limitations, perhaps he refused any recording of their interview, or maybe this interview was more for her own sake rather than the sake of historical record

There must be mixed feelings there.

Fascinating! I always had the impression that the "persona" of the primitive, passive, subaltern officer in the camps, who didn´t really know what was going on, who never really was an antisemite, who basically was thrown into all this through circumstance, is a myth, a constructed narrative. The narrative of the "small wheel in a bigger machinery" was used prominently by Eichmann´s defendence and Eichmann himself. I personally do not believe it. For some of the lower ranking personnel of the Aktion Reinhardt it may be so, but the main officers where there because they qualified themselves for that particular job. What is your opinion of this? Do you have any other information about Stangl´s attitude towards the Holocaust after the war? It would be interersting to get a closer look into the mind of the "real" Stangl, like we have through the Sassen interviews of Eichmann. Gitta Sereny did some excellent work, but I´m afraid that she only got some glimpses. The man she talked with for the most part was a constructed "persona", in my opinion, constructed so well that Stangl himself believed it probably.

I am reading the book now, I lived under a dictatorship and I know how trapped you can be. I know he did wrong, very wrong but I feel sorry for him, for the kind of heavy guilt he must have had. Poor man, he should have thought better and leave, if he really thought what he said he did.

Ooooh are you proud of the family name after his atrocities?

Christopher Sykes

She was an excellent journalist. Her books are incredible.

She's not defending him or exonerating him or saying he wasn't culpable, she's saying that he was basically a lazy, useless idiot who was incapable of doing anything of any importance within the Nazi machine, was unqualified in any way to end up in a position of authority. He was a nobody, a dolt who cared about nothing, not even life. Read the book she wrote about him...she portrays him as he was, and by default the Nazis were. Lucky, stupid, banal and evil 'men' who really believed in nothing but their own sense of self importance. No real ideology, no real ideas, no real feelings...nothing men.

@@bradmeeds1226 Those aren't accusations Brad.

Stalin wanted to kill 50 k German military.

​@@AnthonyMonaghanthere are primary testimonials from survivors from the camp he was supervising. So it's not just accusation as you put it