Alex J. Kay. The Making of an SS Killer: The Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 1905–1990.
2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 122; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/ahr/122.5.1707
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)European history and politics
ResumoDespite numerous publications examining the Nazi murder apparatus that have been spawned by access to new archival collections, individual biographies of SS officers responsible for implementing Nazi-sponsored shooting operations remain scarce. In The Making of an SS Killer: The Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 1905–1990, Alex Kay has added a biography of Alfred Filbert, chief of Einsatzkommando 9 of Einsatzgruppe B and a member of the Security Police and Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst—SD). Between June 22 and October 20, 1941, Filbert’s detachment rolled across the Western Soviet Union, leaving a blood-soaked trail of around 20,000 dead—mostly unarmed Jewish civilians. Kay, quoting Michael Mann, writes that Filbert emerges as one of the “real Nazis,” “ideological killers” motivated by commitment to race-based nationalism applied as “murderous ethnic/political cleansing” (quoted in Kay, 122) and by “ambition and craving for recognition” (122). To this lethal psychological brew, Kay, quoting social psychologists Roy F. Baumeister and Brad J. Bushman, adds the label “narcissist”: a person who, perceiving in social life “a series of struggles for dominance,” seeks to “establish [himself] … in a superior position by conquering or intimidating other[s]” (quoted in Kay, 124–125). Since careerism and ideological convictions precluded a self-defining struggle against superiors and rivals in the SS and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), Filbert targeted an “innocent” third party—the Jews, whose victimization strengthened his position within the SS by removing doubts as to his reliability. “Narcissism converged with ideological conviction and careerism,” resulting “in the radical pursuit first and foremost of Soviet Jews” (125).
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