Can the Holocaust be forgiven?

Normal people were simply following orders during the Holocaust

Question: Can the Holocaust be forgiven?
Position‹2 of 2: The Holocaust can be forgiven
Argument‹3 of 3: Normal people were simply following orders during the Holocaust

When faced with the option of kill or be killed, Nazi soldiers had no choice but to follow the orders given to them.

The argument

The Nazi regime forced German citizens into joining the Nazi military. When soldiers joined the Nazi regime, they had to vow a loyalty of unconditional obedience. They had no choice but to obey the commands given without question. If a guard or soldier wavered in their loyalty, they were often executed. In the years prior to and during World War II, at least 15,000 German soldiers were executed for disobeying orders. This means that the Nazis had no choice but to kill others in order to avoid getting killed themselves. Therefore, they should be forgiven for their acts against the Jews because they acted out of survival. In addition, many of the Nazi did their jobs without question. They were not directly involved in murdering the Jews, but they did participate in transporting them and liquidating the ghettos. Only a small percentage of German soldiers went on to be full-fledged Nazis. This means that most soldiers were simply following the orders they were given without question. Therefore, the Holocaust should be forgiven due to the ignorance of the soldiers.

Premises

[P1]Soldiers in the Nazi regime were bound by a vow of unconditional obedience, and disobeying orders risked execution—at least 15,000 German soldiers were executed for refusal—so many acted under threat to their own lives. [P2] Most were not full-fledged Nazis directly murdering Jews but carried out tasks like transport and ghetto liquidation without question, acting, on this argument, out of coercion and ignorance rather than malice. [C] Therefore, on the view that normal people were simply following orders under duress, the Holocaust can be forgiven.

Counter-arguments

Not all German soldiers were killed for insubordination. In a study of 135 German soldiers that defied orders, some were beaten and threatened, but none of them were executed. Soldiers did have a choice when following orders, and being beaten is a small price to pay when compared to murdering innocent people. As soldiers, the Nazis should have defied orders when forced to torture and kill innocent adults and children. Ignorance should not be a reason for forgiveness. Nazi soldiers should have thought about the repercussions of their actions and recognized the unethical treatment of the Jews before they were even killed. Additionally, while some soldiers did not know the ultimate fate of the Jews that they sent off, they were fully aware of the discriminatory ideology driving the deportations of the Jews.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The duress claim does not survive the record it appeals to. The 15,000 figure covers executions for desertion, defeatism and insubordination across the entire war; historians looking specifically for men punished for refusing to shoot civilians have not found the pattern the premise requires, and personnel offered the chance to step out of killing units — as at Józefów — could do so without being executed. A vow of unconditional obedience establishes what was demanded, not what refusal would have cost. [Rejecting P2] "Transport and ghetto liquidation" is carrying a great deal of weight. Clearing a ghetto meant shooting those who could not walk and driving the rest to the trains, so the line between administrative work and killing does not fall where the premise places it. Ignorance is correspondingly hard to sustain for men doing that work, and the two defences pull against each other: someone who did not know what was happening cannot also have been compelled by fear of refusing it. [Rejecting C] Even granting reduced culpability for some participants, the conclusion does not follow. Diminished responsibility is a claim about how much blame one person bears, whereas forgiveness of the Holocaust is a claim about an event of which the units described were only one part — and it is not something third parties are placed to extend on behalf of those who were killed.