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What the Nazi photographic albums of the Wold War 2 might reveal about human
nature.
In the famous experiment directed by Stanley Milgram, it has been said that people would conform to
authority even if that authority is regarded as evil. In case you haven't heard about the experiment, the
experiment has taen place at !ale university, in which the participants were randomly chosen and told that
the experiment was about a study of memory and learning. In the experiment, a white"coated experimenter
was in charge of two sub#ects, the one given the role of the teacher and the other the role of the learner.
$hen, the experimenter would tell the learner to remember some words, and in case he wouldn't remember
them, the teacher would have to press a button that would create an electric shoc hurting the learner.
Meanwhile, with each wrong answer the voltage would get more intense and by the end of the experiment
the learner would scream and cry for help. %hat the teacher didn't now about, was that there was
actually no electricity involved in the experiment and that the learner was actually an actor that was ased
to participate and scream when the sub#ect would press the button.
%hat has been revealed in the experiment, was that people would obey authority even though they new
that they would hurt someone. $o cope with any feelings of guilt they would develop coping mechanisms that
would #ustify their sadistic, bad behaviors of hurting the learners. Some of these coping mechanisms was
to choose to believe that their actions was #ustified because they were part of a greater cause &in the case of
Milgram's experiment, science', or to devaluate the learner( too dumb, doesn't remember anything,
deserve to be punished.
) notable element in Milgram's observation was that people's sense of morality didn't disappear but instead
was reoriented to the authority figure &the person that gives the order, in the case of Milgram's experiment
the experimenter' instead of the person they harm. *or example, they would feel obligated to follow the
wishes of the experimenter &so that they would be polite to him' and would "to a great extend" overloo the
harm they did to the learner. *or them, to please authority was more important than the learner's cries
and screams. $o #ustify their hurtful actions they would mae up excuses, lie the ones that mentioned
above.
Milgram's experiment has been taen place in a post"war era in which sociologists, psychologists and
philosophers were trying to explain and understand the mechanism involved in the obedience to one the
most cruel regimes in the world history( +a,ism. Many explanations were given, and many experiments were
run. -ut what if we as a +a,i soldier, what would he tell us about his participation to the third reich pro#ect.
%ould he admit that what he was doing was un#ustifiable, or would he somehow #ustify his actions as in the
case of the sub#ects of the Milgram's experiment.
Instead of directly asing one, that would be difficult/ we can loo at his photographs. $hrough his
photographs we can expose some of his deepest and more complex psychological processes impressed on
his photographic frame. -ut first a little history about photography during the +a,i 0ermany.
1uring that time, the shooting through photographic roll film was becoming the mainstream photographic
method. $hat flexible and easy to store medium, was perfect for amateur photography. In +a,i 0ermany, the
ministry of propaganda has taen advantage of that ability, by giving each +a,i soldier a personal camera to
shoot their experiences from the war. -y the end of the war, the soldiers had created a vast number of
photographic albums that show their experiences from the war and through that, giving us an alternative
perspective to %orld %ar II. )ccording to +a,i ministry of propaganda, the photographic albums was a way
of connecting the soldiers of the various fronts to the 0ermany, ain to a social networ site of the era. $he
albums were "for some reason" only recently exhibited in museums, such as the 2istorical Museum of
*ranfurt in 3454 and the 6nited States 2olocaust Memorial Museum.
If we accept that Milgram's experiment describes the way a whole nation was misled by obeying an
authoritarian regime, then it is possible that in those albums is where the defense mechanisms that Milgram
explains meet application.
7ooing closer to these photographic albums, one would perceive that the most photographs inside it, are
either depicting the war as a liberation of the subdued countries, or identify the other &foreign people' as
inferior or they represent the war as if it was #ust a game.
In their photographs, there is an unconscious tendency to #ustify and even ideali,e their role as occupiers in
a foreign country. In the picture below, in which a mother and her two children are depicted, the title of this
photograph is 8ussland, das 9inderparadies &translated as( 8ussia, the children paradise'. In the photo,
the depicted persons are obviously poor &dirty, old clothes'. $he decision of the soldier to tae and eep that
picture, was an intention to distinguish his identity from that of the other &the foreigner'. $hrough the action
of shooting this picture, he creates an identity dipole that separates the photographer &+a,i soldier' from the
depicted &poor local' person. $hat separation, reveals that the photographer needed to distinguish himself
from the other &that he depicted as poor, unhealthy, :uncivili,ed: and dirty', to exalt his self"image, and
conse;uently #ustify the reasons that he is an occupier/ the same tendency that we have seen when the
teachers in milgram's experiment were devaluating the learners " I am better than you, you deserve
that.
$he same happens with another picture depicting a poor local person, exhausted, probably taen from the
invaded eastern front.
)lso, the same could be found in more photos, as in the one below in which the title says( hinter diesem
ofen ist das bett fuer alle translated as( behind his furnace is the bed for all that through sarcasm they
connote inferiority. Some other images are showing migrating people from the occupied areas with titles such
as the gave up the fight', some others are showing +a,i soldiers mocingly dancing with local people and so
on... )ll generally depicting the occupied people as :inferior: or :uncivili,ed:.
)nother way to :#ustify: their actions, would be to seem :compassionate: towards the people they occupied.
) supposedly compassionate picture, could be used as a :#ustification: of their actions as occupiers. $he
soldier through the sarcastic title he gives to the photo( 8ussland, das 9inderparadies, his reference to
children enhances his feelings of #ustification, as if he was saying( we came here to protect the children.
<ven though this motif has been always used in propaganda &targeting the emotion of the audience is a
common method used in propaganda' in that case the photos are coming from an amateur photographer
that is not concerned with creating propaganda, something that might reveal that the emotional conflicts
impressed on these images are valid.
%hat generally is being revealed through these albums and the reason why they ept them long after the
war was over, might be that the individual identity of the +a,i soldiers of that time, was "at the end"
consumed by these #ustifications. $he act of many +a,is to eep their albums :safe: after the war indicates
#ust how strong was this constructed myth they created to #ustify their actions and how this constructed,
fae narrative has permeated into their self"perception and identity.

0enerally, this false identity or shadow identity as I call it, formed with the internali,ation of all the
#ustification they created to #ustify their un#ustifiable acts, is the result of the repression of their individual self
from an external authority. )dditionally we can see how this cognitive dissonance"evoed myth created by
the +a,is could intensify the propaganda and give them a sense of identity that would unify them all towards
the fulfillment of the narrative of their collectively constructed fairy tale. Maybe that's what the ministry of
propaganda of +a,i 0ermany was trying to achieve.
Maybe, what we can learn from here, is that who we thin we are might #ust be a #ustification, the resolve of
a congitive dissonance that resulted from the sacrifice of our individuality to the obedience of an irrational
authority &an ideology, a person, a standard'. %e might not have &at least in most countries' a totalitarian
regime, but the sacrifice of our individual sense of self exists nowadays mostly in the form of consuming
identities. In our culture dominated by image and information we tend to consume ideas, identities and
nowledge more often than we produce. %hile trying to be as someone else or by acnowledging an
external, cultural standard or theory as if it is the ultimate truth, we automatically sub#ect ourselves to the
same dynamics that I describe above.
$he more we do it, the more we need to #ustify this sacrifice of our individual self and conse;uently the
more we create an illusion that #ustifies it in which we dwell and believe as if it is real. So ultimately, this
alienation " the shadow identity " becomes our only valid sense of self and because without it we are lost
&our sense of self collapses', we tend to cherish it as the +a,is did with their albums. %e will eep it safe
from anything that threads it( even from liberating things.