# Did anyone in the SS refuse concentration camp work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151 "2008-11-17T18:11:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/21 "2008-11-19T08:30:46Z")
Oh God! Someone just sent me an e-mail which lists many films about this very subject! I apologize! I had no iidea. But then again, I have been out of touch about a lot of things recently. I’m sorry, okay? Q ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/22 "2008-11-19T09:34:21Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > Did the German military have the concept of an illegal order? Yes, to a limited extent. The punishments for disobeying illegal orders could be reduced. Death sentences were replaced by prison and prison terms _could_ be reduced to one year or half of the original sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Mycroft\_Holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Mycroft\_Holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_Holmes)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/23 "2008-11-19T11:40:00Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Not to nitpick, but the Waffen-SS wasn’t created until 1939. You’re right. He volunteered for the “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”, which later became part of the Waffen SS. The SS had some really strange ideas in general. For example my mother’s birth certificate says she was born in Berlin. She was actually born in a “Lebensborn Heim” (Kurmark in Klosterheide to be exact). [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn) is some interesting (and sometimes scary) information about the club called “Lebensborn e.V.” While my grandfather was on the Eastern Front my grandmother was living with her in-laws in Thüringen (became part of the Russian occupation zone). Before the Russians got there, my grandmother had to burn and bury a lot of documents and pictures, because the results of the Russians fiding out that her husband was an SS officer would not have been pleasant at all. Due to this, my family only has one or two pictures of my grandfather in uniform. She ended up smuggling her three small children, some of her posssesions and herself to the American zone during the harsh winter of 1946/1947 (Still called “Hungerwinter” today). ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/24 "2008-11-19T16:06:47Z")
Is anyone other than me astounded at how _quickly_ all that stuff (Lebensborn, Final Solution, the medical experiments, etc.) was put together? Germans (of which I am one) have always been known as “rubber stampers”, but something must have already been “in place” for all that shit to happen as quickly as it did. Or am I missing something? In matters of history (as in most things) I willingly yield to the teeming masses who know more than me. (Read that as **y’all**!:)) Q ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/25 "2008-11-19T16:27:01Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Is anyone other than me astounded at how _quickly_ all that stuff (Lebensborn, Final Solution, the medical experiments, etc.) was put together? The buildings etc, the infrastructure, I can understand. The Germans were putting a lot of effort into all of that all over the country. But the change in mindset puzzles/bothers me. Is it really so easy that one minute you’re a police officer, the next minute you’re exterminating, gunning down people into a ditch in a forest. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/26 "2008-11-19T16:36:50Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > But the change in mindset puzzles/bothers me. Is it really so easy that one minute you’re a police officer, the next minute you’re exterminating, gunning down people into a ditch in a forest. 😕 You should read “Ordinary Men”, Christopher Browning’s look at Police Batallion 101. But, see, you made a mistake here. You’re not gunning down people into a ditch in a forest…that would be monstrous, and only a sociopath would be able to do that. You’re gunning down the enemy, and in doing so, doing your part to save your country. In a little way, then, you’re acting like a hero. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/27 "2008-11-19T16:58:42Z")
Unsettling, I guess in the same way medical science was “boosted” by the research the doctors carried out in the camps. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/28 "2008-11-19T20:44:45Z")
A quick Googling brought up this interesting book snippet, which looks as if it is worth a browse. I have heard of some cases of German uniformed army officers as mentioned in teh book refusing orders to shoot Jews and getting away with it, but dont know of any cases of SS personnel. > **[A Peace Reader](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=I5e1oWb7zSUC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&ots=6rmrQu1ADf&dq=SS%2Brefusing%2Borders)** > > A Peace Reader Revised contains articles reflecting different and even opposing viewpoints, offering competing visions of the future. They range from the scholarly to the folksy; from the philosophical to the satirical; from the didactic to the... ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/29 "2008-11-19T21:35:30Z")
More detail on Delmotte and the arguments Mengele used to get him to cooperate. > **[People in Auschwitz](https://books.google.com/books?id=vdtaBoUgXSMC&pg=PA360&vq=%22Hans%2BDelmotte%22&dq=%22Hans%2BDelmotte%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0)** > > Hermann Langbein was allowed to know and see extraordinary things forbidden to other Auschwitz inmates. Interned at Auschwitz in 1942 and classified as a non-Jewish political prisoner, he was assigned as clerk to the chief SS physician of the... ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/30 "2008-11-19T22:20:19Z")
Actually, it’s this book, chapter 3 that looks like it’s worth a browse: > **[In the Name of the People:Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of Their...](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=ZwVttu0EtbgC&pg=PA271&dq=SS%2Brefusing%2Borders#PPA269,M1)** > > In the Name of the People explores the profile of the perpetrators of Nazi genocide as reflected in postwar German trial sentences. It investigates their social background, their 'route to crime', and their role in the Nazi extermination apparatus.... It mentions that there was no general policy among the SS in regards to disobedience of orders, and that there wasn’t, in general, punishment, or at least not severe punishment, of SS officers who wouldn’t obey genocidal orders. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151/31 "2008-11-19T23:36:57Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > More detail on Delmotte and the arguments Mengele used to get him to cooperate. > > [People in Auschwitz - Hermann Langbein - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=vdtaBoUgXSMC&pg=PA360&vq=%22Hans+Delmotte%22&dq=%22Hans+Delmotte%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0) Lifton agrees with Langbein (whom he cites) that Mengele’s persuasion is the main factor in Delmotte agreeing to select, but adds a couple of other aspects to the mix. Very unusually, he was given special permission for his wife to join him the area. He was also working on a medical dissertation and a distinguished Jewish professor amongst the prisoners was encouraged to befriend him and advise him on it. It’s the latter - the prisoner - who puts the argument to him that he (Delmotte) will be punished if he doesn’t go along with what’s expected of him in the camp. Thus a combination of arguments and privilages to make him feel that the environment and what was being asked of him was actually “normal”, thereby getting him to suppress his revulsion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-in-the-ss-refuse-concentration-camp-work/473151.md?page=1)