To conclude, a great man called Kurt Schwedersky is one of the central figures of this author’s broader research and whose presence can be felt in this article series. A district court councillor for Düsseldorf during the post-war period, Schwedersky was one of the investigative judges instrumental in amassing evidence for the second Treblinka trial (1964-65). He did this primarily through testimonies he received and from interviews he conducted during the deposition process. A small sample of this evidence has made its way into this article.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Schwedersky undertook his investigations, probing into Nazi atrocities in Germany was still largely frowned upon by those who preferred to consign the past to history. Germans understandably wished to move on from the war-time horrors committed by them or their compatriots and concentrate on reconstruction, resulting in indifference or even hostility towards inquiries into Nazi transgressions. Therefore, Schwedersky’s task was not only largely thankless but also surely came at a significant personal cost.
The esteem in which this author holds Schwedersky arises partly from the relentless atrocities he was exposed to through the testimonies he gathered. When initiating his compilation of deposition records, he could scarcely have anticipated the full scale of the Treblinka's inhumanity. Although informed about the Holocaust, the evidence he unearthed depicted an unimaginable reality of suffering that would shake any compassionate individual to their core. These direct accounts, including those from perpetrators and survivors of the 1943 Treblinka uprising, were unprecedented in their depiction of brutality. One poignant narrative was relayed to him by a survivor, Yakov Eisner, from Tel Aviv, on 29th May 1960, who chronicled the abhorrent scenes he witnessed during his three-month internment at Treblinka.
Eisner’s testimony primarily focused on the heinous acts of Kurt Franz, the former deputy commandant of Treblinka, whom he described as an embodiment of relentless terror. Eisner recounted one particularly harrowing incident wherein Franz accused two young men of hiding a map and compass and subjected them to a brutal public punishment with a knife and whip, stopping short of killing them. Instead, Franz had makeshift gallows constructed by Ukrainian guards. Eisner's description of the subsequent events is harrowing:
We stood motionless in fear and terror, when the gallows were ready, the SS man Kurt hung both boys, by the neck of the redhead, Langer by his legs, the former died immediately. On the other hand, Langer hung for over six hours and was in terrible agony…his head grew to improbable proportions. The SS man Franz left the square when he had hung them both. We were there for hours, guarded by the SS men. After many hours, the SS man Franz returned to the camp, turned to us and said that as soon as anyone attempted to escape from the camp, such an end, of course, awaited them. Then he fetched a revolver and shot Langer in the head and from behind, who was still hanging, blood splattered. I've never seen so much blood coming from a human.
The testimonies Schwedersky collected are a stark reminder of the depths of human cruelty and the importance of the painstaking work of individuals like him in pursuing justice and historical truth.
As we delve deeper into the Treblinka killing centre in a subsequent article series, this testimony, laden with abject horror, proves to be but a fraction of the unspeakable suffering chronicled by those who endured it. The documentation amassed by Schwedersky, while providing a vivid depiction of brutality, is part of a much more extensive compilation of evidence that meticulously portrays what can only be described as a diabolical manifestation of hell on earth—a cacophonous nightmare experienced by the victims in stark, waking reality.
Though a significant portion of the testimonial evidence concerning the perpetrators' crimes emerges from the victims, several perpetrators themselves have been disconcertingly candid about the atrocities they abetted. A notable example is Franz Suchomel, a Sudeten German who described the horrors he was privy to with disturbing clarity, both officially and in clandestine footage for Claud Lanzmann's documentary, 'Shoah' (1985). Suchomel was present during Treblinka's initial period of operation, described unanimously by available sources as a chaotic spree of slaughter.
The camp's first commandant, Dr. Irmfried Eberl, in a zeal for murder, grossly overextended the facility's capacity, leading to his removal due to gross mismanagement. Suchomel's grim recollections offer a glimpse into the nightmarish tableau overseen by a male coalition at Treblinka as corpses amassed around the gas chambers: “Because there were so many dead that couldn't be gotten rid of, the bodies piled up around the gas chambers and stayed there for days. Under this pile of bodies was a cesspool three inches deep, full of blood, worms and shit. No one wanted to clean it out. The Jews preferred to be shot rather than work there. It was awful. Burying their own people, seeing it all. The dead flesh came off in their hands.”
The profound suffering of the Holocaust poses a significant challenge to our willingness to comprehend such events within the framework of the physical laws that govern our universe. We are forced to confront the unsettling truth that the vast array of human experiences, from the most benevolent to the most horrific, are all part of the complex web of interactions our scientific understanding encompasses. The violent acts Schwedersky encountered in the testimonies he compiled were, in a fundamental sense, the result of biochemical processes in the brains of the individuals involved. The discomforting reality is that these events are now an indelible part of our collective history, underscoring that our biological evolution has endowed us with the capacity for immense destructiveness towards one another—a capacity dictated by the same molecular interactions that dictate the existence of any organism.
Joseph Carroll's observations highlight a common resistance to accepting this viewpoint: “many continue to adhere to some form of human exceptionalism, the belief that human consciousness or culture exists outside the causal frameworks that govern the rest of the natural world.” However, this is a misconception; there is no dichotomy separating humans from nature, and the Holocaust did not occur in a separate ontological domain. The calculated and systematic nature of the Holocaust, with its intentional design to reduce risk to the perpetrators and ensure the systematic destruction of lives, is indicative of a type of male violence that can be traced back to our evolutionary past. This past has shaped behaviours through selection pressures favouring traits that enhance survival, reproductive success, and persistence.
Yet, despite the complexity and sophistication of Perpetrator Studies, evolutionary biology is often conspicuously absent from the growing list of disciplines in this field employed to understand such human behaviour. This exclusion is notable in the otherwise diverse and interdisciplinary approach outlined by Knittel and Goldberg in "The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies" (2020), which includes fields ranging from history and criminology to cultural and gender studies. Evolutionary biology, with its potential to serve as what E.O. Wilson called a "borderland discipline," could offer a unified framework combining the natural and social sciences to deepen our understanding of conspecific violence. Still, it is curiously absent in Knittel and Goldberg’s and other lists of supposed appropriate lenses.
While our evolutionary background does not deterministically predict individual actions—clearly, not all humans engage in violence—it is undeniable that biology plays a role in shaping tendencies and motivations. Harnessing a comprehensive suite of analytical tools is crucial to address the darkest aspects of the human condition. As Wilson laments, social scientists pay scant attention to the biological foundations and deep origins of human nature. To move towards a more nuanced understanding of perpetrator behaviour, it is imperative to not only examine the immediate mechanisms at play but also consider their ultimate adaptive significance. In doing so, we may better equip ourselves to address and prevent the recurrence of such atrocities in the future.
These accounts excavate the darkest reaches of human depravity, meriting their inclusion here as they starkly underscore the profoundly perverse and surreal conditions of killing centres like Treblinka and Auschwitz. 'Planet Auschwitz' is a term that's been employed to encapsulate the near-impossible task of fully grasping or articulating the depths of atrocity that characterised Holocaust killing centres. The extremities of inhumanity perpetrated and the total disdain for life displayed by the perpetrators prompt many to regard them as monstrous rather than human. This psychological distancing serves as a comfort mechanism, fostering the belief that such actors are fundamentally different from the rest of humankind. Interpreting the Holocaust and its executors in this manner offers a form of mental refuge, creating a divide from the harrowing acknowledgement that the inflicted cruelties were not beyond the capabilities of humanity but were instead all too human.
In stripping away the layers of these sickening crimes, we are confronted with a disquieting truth: the atrocities of the Holocaust were not the work of mythical beasts but of ordinary males—members of our own species who shared our air, our earth, and our evolutionary lineage. This serves as a stark and sobering reminder of the profound depths to which humanity has sunk and, alarmingly, might sink again.
Finally, as we proceed in subsequent articles, we will confront the stark and monstrous reality of the Nazi era—an era marked by pervasive beatings, torture, enslavement, rape, murder, and genocide. In exploring these depths, we are set to peer further into an abyss so dark and brutal that its gaze is reciprocal, reflecting back the very horrors we scrutinise. We advance towards this dark chasm because within it lies a phenomenon intrinsic to our species that we are compelled to understand and prevent: male coalitionary proactive murder. From the distant orchestrators in comfortable, well-lit offices to the direct perpetrators at Treblinka, proactive murder was initiated, encouraged, and executed because, fundamentally, it served their interests. All perpetrators discussed in this article functioned as agents of lineage-level violence, employing intraspecific murder as a strategy for fitness gains—a strategy borne of adaptive evolution, selected for its utility in ensuring lineage persistence.
Adaptive evolution occurs as organisms, including humans, vie to propagate their genetic material. Human fitness extends beyond mere survival and reproduction; it encompasses the enduring dissemination of an individual’s genes and lineage across time and diverse environments. In the ruthless competition for Earth’s limited resources, lineages sometimes target one another, with the decision to attack resting on a cost-benefit analysis—the potential gains weighed against the losses inflicted on another lineage. The violence chronicled in this article occurred because of its instrumental role in resource appropriation; thus, on an ultimate level, it was always purposeful.
An article series that follows will vividly demonstrate lineage-level violence, particularly through the targeting of children, revealing that the perpetrators were engaged in a long-term strategy where the murder of conspecifics was a mechanism to secure and guarantee endurance. Therefore, the Nazis' reliance on male coalitionary proactive murder during their imperialist ventures in World War II was essentially about resource usurpation, which, if successful, could translate into lineage fitness—rendering the Holocaust an act of profound immorality, yet not devoid of a perverse logic.
Now we must ask ourselves: Do we retreat from this abyss or advance towards it, ready to face the appalling truths that lie within?
In Sum:
In this final part, we distilled the essential findings from the narrative explored. Reflecting on the stark realities and the substantial historical evidence presented, it was designed to encapsulate the pivotal points, providing you readers with a concise overview to comprehend the essence of the recounted horrors, the roles of the individuals involved, and the analytical perspectives employed to understand the depths of human depravity unveiled in the article. This included:
Kurt Schwedersky played a crucial role in documenting Nazi crimes during a time when such actions were unpopular and even met with hostility in Germany.
The testimonies collected provide an unfiltered view into the gruesome reality of killing centres like Treblinka, which Schwedersky could not have initially comprehended.
The accounts of perpetrators like Kurt Franz and Franz Suchomel add to the chilling narrative, detailing inhumane acts and the operational chaos within Treblinka.
These sources force a confrontation with the disconcerting notion that the Holocaust was perpetrated by ordinary people rather than mythical monsters.
The examination of these events through an evolutionary lens adds depth to our understanding of human motivations, suggesting that the Holocaust can be seen as a product of adaptive evolution and lineage-level violence for fitness gains.
Looking Forward:
As we prepare to delve deeper into the Treblinka narrative in a subsequent article series, it is essential to understand its historical significance and profound implications for our present and future. An upcoming article series will seek to extrapolate an evolutionary logic for the perpetration of this atrocity, providing a lens through which we can understand the human capacity for violence and the underlying mechanisms that drive such barbarity. By understanding the primal incentives that could lead to such a hellscape, we aim to shed light on the darkest corners of human behaviour. The coming series will venture beyond the surface to explore the evolutionary underpinnings of the Holocaust and its executioners' actions, all in an effort to uncover the lessons we must learn to prevent history from repeating its most grievous errors. This isn't just a story of the past; it's a vital inquiry into the nature of humanity itself, and your continued engagement is not only welcomed but necessary for a more profound collective reflection.
Footnotes:
Testimony of Yakov Eisner, May 29, 1960, Courts Rep. 388 No. 749, Public Prosecutor at the Regional Court Dusseldorf Criminal Case, State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland.
Franz Suchomel, Christian Wirth (Altötting, 1972), Michael Tregenza Collection, Lublin, Poland, p. 9.
Joseph Carroll, Dan P. McAdams, and Edward O. Wilson, eds., Darwin’s Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. xxi.
Susanne C. Knittel and Zachary J. Goldberg, The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020), p. 1.
Edward O. Wilson, Consilience (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1998), p. 200.