Nations Have the Right to Kill has generated excitement and discussion—providing new insight into the meaning of warfare. Will the world change if we are able to internalize Koenigsberg’s disturbing hypothesis? Once again available—at the very special price of $10.99 (list $39.99). CLICK HERE for information on getting your copy at this special price. Publisher: Library of Social Science Author: Richard Koenigsberg ISBN-13: 9780915042234 List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $10.99 “Nations Have the Right to Kill offers a riveting examination of the ideology of political violence. Through careful analysis of Hitler’s writings and speeches, Dr. Koenigsberg makes us aware of the ideology that was the source of both warfare and genocide. This book contains a message that anyone with an interest in changing the course of history should internalize and reflect upon. Can human beings transcend war? If so, Nations Have the Right to Kill will be one of our most important guides. Its striking lucidity will be a catalyst for our collective evolution.” —Lee Hall, JD

Nazism as Sacrificial Death

In this pioneering study, Richard Koenigsberg demonstrates that Hitler’s fundamental motive in waging war was neither world conquest nor the struggle to obtain “living space” in the East. Rather, from the beginning, Hitler’s fundamental desire was to sacrifice—kill—his own people.

Nazi ideology revolved around sacrificial death. National Socialism, Hitler declared, meant acting with a boundless love for his people and, if necessary, “to die for it.” Any man who loves his people, Hitler said, proves it “solely by the sacrifices which he is prepared to make for it.” Giving one’s life for one’s country constituted the “crown of sacrifice.”

By 1935, Germany was doing well. Political strife and chaos had diminished. The economy was improving. Hitler claimed that he had achieved his goal of rescuing or “resurrecting” the German nation. There was no reason for Germany to go to war.

Nevertheless, in the midst of recovery, Hitler planned the next war. In conversations in the mid-1930s, he said that when the time was ripe, he would be prepared for the “blood sacrifice of another German generation.” When he ordered war he would not hesitate because of the “10 million young men I shall be sending to their death.”

In Nations Have the Right to Kill, Koenigsberg theorizes that whatever we may say about war—whatever we imagine it is—modern warfare revolves around a single idea: that sacrificial death for one’s nation is good and virtuous; that it is “sweet and fitting” for human beings to die for their country.

“Lay Down One’s Life—or Perish”

Nations Have the Right to Kill is based on a close reading of Hitler’s writings and speeches, where he clearly conveyed the nature of his project. To comprehend what occurred, one need only pay close attention to Hitler’s words. What he did was based on what he said.

Hitler declared war on September 1, 1939—as German airplanes and troops crossed the Polish border in a devastating Blitzkrieg. In a speech delivered to the Reichstag, Hitler stated that as a National Socialist and German soldier, he was entering upon the fight “with a stout heart!” His whole struggle had been inspired by “one single conviction: Faith in my people!”

Then Hitler issued the directive that would shape the course of the war: “I ask of every German what I myself am prepared to do at any moment: to be ready to lay down his life for his people and for his country. If anyone thinks that he can evade this national duty directly or indirectly, he will perish.”

Koenigsberg suggests that this passage reveals the essence of Hitler’s desire and Nazi ideology: everyone must die for Germany. The noble, honorable German would willingly “lay down his life for his people and his country.” Other less noble, less honorable people might believe they could “evade the national duty.” Hitler would see to it that these people too would “perish.”

“I hang here because I am too cowardly to die for the Fatherland”

As he had predicted, Hitler generated a bloodbath. Over 4 million German soldiers were killed. More Germans were killed in the last year—when Hitler and the Nazi leadership knew the situation was hopeless—than in the previous five years of the war. Told that 15,000 German officers had died in a futile attempt to defend Berlin, Hitler declared: “But that’s what young men are for!”

Nations Have the Right to Kill conveys Hitler’s “endgame.” During the Soviet invasion, most German troops fought desperately, carrying out the Nazi mandate: “obedience unto death.” Some recognized the futility of the cause and attempted to surrender—and were shot by the SS. The Nazis enforced their code. Soldiers suspected of desertion were executed, sometimes left dangling from trees with placards around their necks reading “cowardice in the face of the enemy.” One soldier was strung up on a lamppost with the sign, “I hang here because I am too cowardly to defend my Fatherland.”

To the end, Hitler refused to allow his people to surrender—to acknowledge that the war was lost. He continued to ask Germans to “lay down their lives.” Special units were established whose instructions were to “make immediate use of their weapons in order to enforce obedience and discipline.” One German soldier said that his and his comrades’ plight was “devilishly simple.” There were only two possibilities: “Death by a bullet from the enemy, or by the ‘thugs’ of the SS.” Thus did Hitler fulfill his dream of war and enforce the sacrificial obligation: Either die for Germany, or be killed.

However, what about the Jews? While German soldiers were being slaughtered, would Jews get away scot-free? As one Nazi official put it, “Will the Jews be in luxury in warm concentration camps while our soldiers freeze on the Eastern Front?” Nations Have the Right to Kill tells the other part of the story: how Jews were compelled to replicate the deaths of German soldiers. They too would be required to be “obedient unto death.”

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART ONE: THE HOLOCAUST

Chapter I: The Logic of the Holocaust

Introduction
Jewish Disease within the German Body Politic
Devotion to Germany
Jewish Individualism as Negation of the German Community
Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?
Jews Too Shall Die

Chapter II: The Sacrificial Meaning of the Holocaust

Introduction
Worshipping Germany
Jewish Destructiveness
War as a Sacrificial Ritual
The Duty to Lay Down One's Life
Soldiers as Sacrificial Victims
The Right to Destroy Millions of Men
Die for Germany-or be Killed

PART TWO: WAR

Chapter III: As the Soldier Dies, So the Nation Comes Alive

Introduction
Obfuscation in the Depiction of Warfare
The Magnitude of Destruction and Futility of the First World War
What Was Going On?
Reification of the Nation-State
Willingness to Die as Declaration of Devotion
As the Soldier Dies, so The Nation Comes Alive

Chapter IV: Virility and Slaughter

Introduction
The First World War as Perpetual Slaughter
Doctrine of the “Offensive at All Costs”
The Battle of the Somme
Virility-The Battle of Verdun
The Sacred Ideal
Virility and Slaughter

Chapter V: Aztec Warfare, Western Warfare

Aztec Warfare
The First World War
Why the Perpetual Slaughter?
The Body and Blood of the Soldier Gives Rise to the Reality of the Nation
War as Potlatch
Warfare as Truth
The Nation-State Kills Its Own Soldiers

PART THREE: THE LOGIC OF WAR AND GENOCIDE

Chapter VI: Dying for the Country

Introduction
Why Did Hitler Wage War?
Identity of Self and Nation
Aryan Willingness for Self-Sacrifice
Hitler's Experience of the First World War
Willingness to Die for One's Country
Why do the Best Human Beings Die in War While the Worst Survive?
Jewish “Shirkers”
As German Soldiers Die, So Must Jews
Sacrificial Death Stripped of Honor

Chapter VII: The Logic of Mass Murder

Introduction
The First World War
Hitler and the First World War
The Euthanasia Program
Obedience (Unto Death)
Hitler Goes to War
The Explanation
Conclusion

Bibliography