Analysis Of Gitta Sereny´s Into That Darkness: An Examination Of Conscience

Who were the Nazis? Monsters? Psychopaths? Amoral? Or were they ordinary men that have rationalized their actions away? Gitta Sereny explores this perplexing image of Nazis and their consciences through her in person interviews of Franz Stangl, the Commandant of Treblinka, in her book Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience. Sereny ensures that she speaks not only to Stangl but also to his wife, his sister-in-law, men who worked with him, survivors of Sobibor and Treblinka, witnesses of events at Sobibor and Treblinka, those connected to the Euthanasia Programme in which he was involved, and those connected to his escape route after World War II (p. 16-18). Sereny works to humanize Stangl, and present him the opportunity to rationalize his role in killing hundreds of thousands of people. Though throughout the book she does not allow for Stangl’s rationalizations to

37) beginning with his willingness to give up his religion for him to keep his job and according to Sereny’s recounting of his belief, to stay alive. Sereny argues that this signing of a document attesting to his separation from the Catholic Church was a distinct step onto the road of corruption. It was his first choice where he compromises his moral beliefs to work under the Nazis. She argues that this was the first of many moral compromises Stangl would make (p. 37). Sereny demonstrates that he often looked outside himself for moral guidance. For example, within his time with the Austrian Police, he states that he was taught to believe that everyone was against them (p.28). Furthermore, while working at Hartheim he rationalized the T4 program by saying that since the nun and priest that he visited thought what they were doing was right, “[w]ho was [he] then, to doubt what was being done” (p. 58). This use of outside guidance for morals, Sereny argues, may have contributed to his corrupted