AUTHORIZING THE DEATH OF HUMAN BEINGS:
WARFARE AND THE HOLOCAUST

Warfare is the cultural form that allows a society to send its own soldiers die. If nations are permitted to sacrifice their own soldiers, Hitler reasoned, why could he not also sacrifice Jews? He declared:

If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without the slightest regret for the spilling of precious German blood, then I naturally also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin.

The Holocaust grew out of Hitler’s insight into the nature of warfare. If he as a national leader was authorized to ask his own soldiers to die, why would he not also have the right to send the mortal enemies of the German people to their deaths?