Experiment Mensch
- The atrocities that the prisoners in the concentration and extermination camps actually suffered in the 20th century can hardly be understood by outsiders like us today, especially if one takes a closer look at the experiences of the survivors, who offer cruel testimony on the human beast. This is also the case with the concentration camp testimonies in Daniel Krochmalnik’s contribution, which tell of the deadly experiments of the so-called ›Übermensch‹ and how he, inspired by the National Socialist master-race ideology, assumed an almost divine mission to exterminate everything human in his victims, so that death often seemed to be the only salvation. In view of such descriptions, which pervade the entire concentration camp literature, one inevitably has to ask oneself, as the author does, about the human condition and whether one can still place hope in people after all this – because the shocking experiences of the homo carceris in the concentration camps and gulags of the last century fundamentally shake the self-understanding ofThe atrocities that the prisoners in the concentration and extermination camps actually suffered in the 20th century can hardly be understood by outsiders like us today, especially if one takes a closer look at the experiences of the survivors, who offer cruel testimony on the human beast. This is also the case with the concentration camp testimonies in Daniel Krochmalnik’s contribution, which tell of the deadly experiments of the so-called ›Übermensch‹ and how he, inspired by the National Socialist master-race ideology, assumed an almost divine mission to exterminate everything human in his victims, so that death often seemed to be the only salvation. In view of such descriptions, which pervade the entire concentration camp literature, one inevitably has to ask oneself, as the author does, about the human condition and whether one can still place hope in people after all this – because the shocking experiences of the homo carceris in the concentration camps and gulags of the last century fundamentally shake the self-understanding of the human as a moral being, who can in fact transform into an angry beast at any time, especially under the influence of totalitarian systems of thought and rule as that Chapter „Homo homini lupus“ shows. Nevertheless, in the end the author does not want to give up all hope in ‚humanistic moral resources‘, even if the very existence of the „camp man“ seems to contradict this.…
Author details: | Daniel KrochmalnikGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.53100/thsvncghhg |
ISSN: | 2569-2054 |
Title of parent work (German): | The Turn : Zeitschrift für islamische Philosophie, Theologie und Mystik |
Subtitle (German): | nach frühen KZ-Zeugnissen |
Publisher: | Al Mustafa Institut |
Place of publishing: | Berlin |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | German |
Year of first publication: | 2021 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2022/01/28 |
Issue: | 3 |
First page: | 23 |
Last Page: | 43 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Jüdische Theologie |
DDC classification: | 2 Religion / 20 Religion / 200 Religion |