Analysis Of Gitta Sereny´s Into That Darkness: An Examination Of Conscience

Who were the Nazis? Monsters? Psychopaths? Amoral? Or were they ordinary men that have rationalized their actions away? Gitta Sereny explores this perplexing image of Nazis and their consciences through her in person interviews of Franz Stangl, the Commandant of Treblinka, in her book Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience. Sereny ensures that she speaks not only to Stangl but also to his wife, his sister-in-law, men who worked with him, survivors of Sobibor and Treblinka, witnesses of events at Sobibor and Treblinka, those connected to the Euthanasia Programme in which he was involved, and those connected to his escape route after World War II (p. 16-18). Sereny works to humanize Stangl, and present him the opportunity to rationalize his role in killing hundreds of thousands of people. Though throughout the book she does not allow for Stangl’s rationalizations to

stand without questioning through historical documents, interviews with others, and through further questioning of Stangl.
Within the first chapter of the book, Sereny paints a picture of a very human Stangl while comparing that image to the one she expected based on others' descriptions. She directly juxtaposes the “quiet and courteous man” (p. 21) with the man who was described in such a way by those involved in his capture as to make him seem like this horrendous, awful monster (p. 21). Sereny further humanizes him for her readers by including the fact that he cried often while speaking of his childhood, and describing his changes in diction from formal German to the German of his childhood that he used when expressing hard truths (p. 26-27; 29). Sereny also speaks to Stangl’s ability to love and feel emotions on many occasions both at the beginning of the book but also later. He valued her opinion of him and loved her immensely according to Sereny. She states that there “is no doubt” that Stangl was completely in love with her and needed her love and approval thus showing he is capable of love (p. 40). This is reiterated when he cannot have his wife near when his wife finds out what he did at Sobibor, so he sends her away (p. 137) and when he discusses how distressed his wife is over his disconnecting from the Catholic Church (p. 37). Sereny states that following his recollection of his wife’s reaction to thinking that he was in the illegal Nazi Party he shed his first “deep tears” and from then on, any mention of his wife brought him to tears (p. 40). This initial humanization of Stangl provides the reader with a mindset conducive to reading the rest of the book without the pre-assessment of Stangl as a monster, thus allowing for better understanding of the testimony and conflict in conscious that he expresses.
Following this humanization Sereny begins to develop the “process of his corruption” (p.

37) beginning with his willingness to give up his religion for him to keep his job and according to Sereny’s recounting of his belief, to stay alive. Sereny argues that this signing of a document attesting to his separation from the Catholic Church was a distinct step onto the road of corruption. It was his first choice where he compromises his moral beliefs to work under the Nazis. She argues that this was the first of many moral compromises Stangl would make (p. 37). Sereny demonstrates that he often looked outside himself for moral guidance. For example, within his time with the Austrian Police, he states that he was taught to believe that everyone was against them (p.28). Furthermore, while working at Hartheim he rationalized the T4 program by saying that since the nun and priest that he visited thought what they were doing was right, “[w]ho was [he] then, to doubt what was being done” (p. 58). This use of outside guidance for morals, Sereny argues, may have contributed to his corrupted

personality.
So then how did a man capable of love, and feelings manage to explain, and rationalize his actions at Hartheim, Sobibor, and Treblinka without feeling guilty of having committed mass murder? When speaking of his time at Hartheim, Stangl states he was not involved in an operational sense indicating he did not feel responsible for the operations at Hartheim (p. 56). Sereny relays that Stangl believed the only way for him to handle what he was doing was through the compartmentalization of thinking. He states that, based off the four requirements of a crime that he was taught in police school (a subject, an object, an action, and intent), “if the ‘subject’ was the government, the ‘object’ the Jews, and the ‘action’ the gassings, then I could tell myself that the fourth element ‘intent’…was missing” (p. 164). This statement by Stangl further proves Sereny’s earlier statement of his corrupted personality. He had changed his thinking to rationalize that what he was doing at Hartheim, Sobibor, and Treblinka was not a crime. Stangl states that he had to do this for survival so that he could limit his actions to what he felt he could answer for (p. 164). He was operating on a double level of consciousness in which he focuses on smaller events rather than the bigger picture to further compartmentalize his thinking.
Sereny argues that Stangl’s focus on single events rather than the whole of what was happening to cope with the situation (p. 124). One example of this focus on singular actions is Stangl’s description of a man complaining that he traded a watch for water but got no water. Stangl states that he made all the guards turn out their pockets regardless of stature because he was not “interested in what uniform a man wears [, he was] only interested in what is inside a man… what’s right is right” (p. 169). Sereny also points this focus out when discussing Stangl’s reaction to the testimony of Stan Szmajzner, a survivor of Sobibor, in which he is accused of shooting directly into the crowd. Sereny argues that Stangl felt betrayed by this testimony as he never carried a gun, only a riding crop (p. 119; 123). She further states that the fact that these people later died anyway seemed irrelevant to him despite their deaths still being under his control still (p. 124).
Another method of coping Sereny describes is based off discussions with Stangl and his wife in which she gathered information leading her to believe that he often manipulated his memory of events to rationalize his actions and avoid the resulting guilt (p. 134). This is exemplified in his recounting of an interaction with a prisoner named Blau. The prisoner comes to him, Stangl recounts and asks him to let his father have a last meal and be shot rather than go to the gas chambers. Stangl presents and speaks of this event like he did the prisoner a favour by saying yes to this request but cannot relate what happened to Blau and his wife (p. 207-208). Moreover, Sereny states that anytime she asked what happened to any of the individual prisoners that he spoke of he responded “in the same tone of detachment, with the same politely aloof expression in his face” that he did not know what happened to them (p. 204). This method of coping, and rationalization allows him to feel as if he was making a change for the better in the camps although he made the camps more effective for killings.
Throughout the book Sereny offers many differing opinions, and statements that draw Stangl’s rationalizations into question. One of the main ways that she draws his rationalizations into question is through her pushing him to think more deeply about what happened, and what he said. For example, when speaking of his offer to help Globocnik ensure that all valuables from Treblinka went through his office instead of straight to Berlin Sereny pushes him on whether this is volunteering to do a job. When Stangl answers that he was just assuring Globocnik that he “would be carrying out this assignment as a police officer under [Globocnik’s] command” (p. 163), Sereny pushes him to confront the fact that earlier in their interviews he called the killings a crime (p. 163-164). Through this interaction you see Stangl’s rationalization of what he was doing, and his role in the Final Solution.
Likewise, Sereny relays to her readers when she believes that Stangl was being evasive, rationalizing his role in the situation, or fabricating some of the story. After Stangl’s statement that he did not think about why one of the nurses from his time at Hartheim were at Sobibor, Sereny states that she knew that his story was “at least partly rationalization and partly evasion” (p. 109). This statement indicates that she was aware of when Stangl was not being entirely truthful. Though she did not press him to think about his statements more later in the book Sereny relays an interaction in which she pushes Stangl to think of how the prisoners were feeling. When discussing the discomfort that Stangl encountered with the sandflies at Sobibor he continually tries to rationalize his lack of regard for their circumstances before eventually changing the topic (p. 118). These pressings for more information, and a more insightful thought process from him provide integral opportunities where Sereny forces both Stangl and the reader to question his rationalization of his role in the mass killings taking place at Hartheim, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
Sereny also uses others’ testimony, and his actions to draw his rationalizations into question. The strongest example of this is Szmajzner’s description of Stangl. After Stangl claims that he was outraged by the idea of killing Jews as he was a police officer (p. 110) Sereny relays that Szmajzner stated that Stangl was notable for “his arrogance [a]nd his obvious pleasure in his work and his situation… [h]e had a perpetual smile on his face” (p. 131). This also calls Stangl’s later claim that he was “a prisoner” (p. 134) a few pages later into question. This rationalization is also called into question when Stangl states that being Commandant was “his profession; [he] enjoyed it. It fulfilled [him]” before later adding that he was in fact ambitious (p. 200). This is not to argue that Sereny presents professional ethos and ambition in a bad light, but she does use these statements to call Stangl’s dislike of his job into question.
Furthermore, Sereny calls Stangl’s belief that he made life for prisoners better into question using other people’s testimony. One major example of this is from Franz Suchomel’s, who worked at Treblinka with Stangl, testimony, as well as his own testimony. Sereny relays that Suchomel stated that though Stangl did improve things at Treblinka, he did not do all that he could have. Suchomel states that Stangl could have gotten rid of the whipping posts and humiliating ‘sport’ and ‘races’ that took place at the camp (p. 202). This statement followed Stangl’s statement that he could not stop the whippings because it “was the system…it worked, it was irreversible” (p. 202). Sereny calls this into question by stating, directly following this claim, that Suchomel remembers Stangl stating that an order had come from Hitler that prisoners were not to be beaten or tortured which he immediately followed up with stating this order was impossible, so officers should just hide their whips when there are visits from Berlin (p. 202). In presenting these conflicting testimonies to whether Stangl could have changed the policy on whipping, and humiliation at Treblinka.