The Puzzle of Nazi Modernism: Modern Technology and Ideological Consensus in an SS Factory at Auschwitz

摘要

References to Nazi "factories of death" are so common that they verge on cliche. Yet, remarkably, historians of the Third Reich have seldom confronted the role of technology or modern production organization in the Nazi genocide. In general, we have too casually linked Germany's reputation for world-class engineering and efficiency to the Holocaust without bothering to discuss or understand the nature of modern bureaucratic organization or the technology policy directly promoted by those Nazis who managed the mass extermination of human beings. The urge to judge this "dark side" of Western material culture is laudable. Unfortunately, for the moment we lack the historical knowledge needed to speak with credibility and precision. The only notable work to address the engineering profession was written twenty years ago: Karl-Heinz Ludwig's Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten Reich, an excellent beginning that few have followed.