The Palmstroem Syndrome: Mass Murder and Motivation a Study of Reluctance

ISBN-13: 9783631803974 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 166 str.

Dick W. de Mildt

Spis treści

I The veiled image 7

1. Little lumps of reality 7

2. The equilibrium of madness 13

3. The Laocoön in Nuremberg 22

4. The carrousel of fate 28

5. The opportunist route to crime (and back) 39

6. 'Show me yourself with your dog, and I'll tell you what you are' 53

II Pars pro toto: Franz Stangl 60

1. Conversations with the executioner 60

2. 'The Lord God knows me' 62

3. The dynamics of evil 65

The Austrian prologue 65

Hartheim and beyond 73

4. Truth and fiction 77

Duress of orders 79

The incorruptible policeman: Stangl's self-portrait 86

The awareness of injustice 90

III The Palmström Syndrome 96

1. A magical encounter 96

2. The criminal of the century 99

3. 'That which must not, cannot be' (I) 111

4. 'That which must not, cannot be' (II) 119

5. Facing 'impossible' facts 124

Postscript: the measure of all things 128

Appendix 132

Notes 150

Bibliography 152

Index on persons 170

O autorze

Dick de Mildt is a historian and co-editor of the multi-volume documentation series of post-war German trial judgments concerning Nazi crimes, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen.