Conclusion—The Milgram-Holocaust Linkage and Beyond

Abstract

This book set out by asking a question that has perplexed Holocaust historians for many years: How did an only moderately antisemitic society in Germany end up killing millions of European Jews? I suggested one way to shed new light on this question might be to explore Stanley Milgram's Obedience studies, concentrating particularly on their invention. I reasoned that Milgram's invention of his experiments and the Nazis' invention of the Holocaust share a key similarity: Both successfully transformed large numbers of "ordinary" and arguably indifferent people into willing inflictors of harm. Therefore, if it were possible to deline-ate Milgram's start-to-finish journey in transforming most of his participants into inflictors of harm on a likeable person, perhaps my findings might offer some insight into how only moderately antisemitic Germans so quickly became willing executioners. Volume 1 revealed that when inventing and then collecting his data, Milgram relied heavily on formally rational techniques of discovery and organization. In terms of the invention of the Obedience experiments, after hearing many Nazi war criminals plead that during the Holocaust they only followed higher orders, Milgram wondered if ordinary people in a social psychology experiment would also follow orders to inflict harm on an innocent person. He set out with a preconceived goal: run a harm-inflicting experiment that would "maximize obedience…" Because Milgram did not have a procedure capable of generating such a result, he had to invent one. Then, relying on forces he suspected caused the Holocaust-Nazi-like pledges of loyalty, strict obedience to harmful CHAPTER 9