Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying Read Online Free PDF

permit Germany’s demise”), and are both historically and culturally very specific. German soldiers in WorldWar II typecast their enemies according to different criteria and characteristics than soldiers in theVietnam War did, but the procedure and function of the typecasting are identical.
    Interpretive paradigms are especially central to how soldiers in World War II experienced others, their own mission, their “race,” Hitler, and Jews. Paradigms equip frames of reference with prefabricated interpretations according to which experiences can be sorted. They also include interpretations from different social contexts that are imported into the experience of war. This is especially significant for the notion of “war as ajob,” which in turn is extremely important for soldiers’ interpretations of what they do. This central role can be gleaned from phrases like the “dirty work” or the “fine job” done by theLuftwaffe that recur in the soldiers’ conversations. The interpretive paradigm from industrial society for how soldiers experienced and dealt with war also informs philosopherErnst Jünger’s famous description of soldiers as “workers of war.” In Jünger’s words, war appears as a “rational work process equally far removed from feelings of horror and romanticism” and the use of weapons as “the extension of a customary activity at the workbench.” 23
    In fact,commercial work and the work of war are indeed related in a number of respects. Both are subject todivision of labor, both depend on technical, specialistqualifications, and both arehierarchically structured. In both cases, the majority of those involved have nothing to do with the finished product and carry out orders withoutasking questions about whether commands are sensible. Responsibility is either delegated or confined to the particular area on which one directlyworks.Routine plays a major role. Workers and soldiers carry out recurring physical movements and follow standing instructions. For instance, in abomber, pilots, bombardiers, and gunners with varyingqualifications work together to achieve a finished product: the destruction of a target, whether that target might be a city, a bridge, or a group of soldiers in the open field. Mass executions such as those perpetrated againstEastern European Jews were not carried out only by those who fired the guns, but by the truck drivers, the cooks, the weapons maintenance personnel, and by the “guides” and “carriers,” those who brought the victims to their graves and who piled up the corpses. The mass executions were the result of a precisedivision of labor.
    Against this backdrop, it is clear thatinterpretive paradigms give war a deeper meaning. If I interpret the killing of human beingsas work, I do not categorize it as a crime and, thereby, normalize what I am doing. The role played by interpretive paradigms in the reference frame of war emerges clearly from examples like the ones above. Actions that would be considered deviant and in need of explanation and justification in the normal circumstances of everyday civilian life become normal, conformist forms of behavior. The interpretive paradigm, in a sense, automatizes moral self-examination and prevents soldiers from feeling guilt.
F ORMAL D UTIES
    Part of anorienting frame of reference is very simple: it is a universe of regulations and a position within a hierarchy that determines what sort of orders an individual can be told to carry out and which orders he himself can issue to subordinates. Civilian life, too, has a spectrum ranging from totaldependence to totalfreedom, depending on theroles one has to play. Abusiness tycoon may enjoy immense freedom of action and be beyond the command of anything but the law in his business. But the situation might be very different in hisfamily life, where he may be bossed around by a dominant father or an imperious wife.
    By contrast, such things are eminently clear in the military. In