How ordinary people become mass murderers. A conversation with Harald WelzerHarald Welzer and Cecilie Felicia S. Banke at Malmö City Library, 3 April 18:00 A conversation with Harald Welzer on his book, Perpetrators. How ordinary people become mass murderers Much have been written about the Holocaust, but one of the fundamental questions remains unanswered: How could utterly normal people become mass murderers? What motivates the perpetrators, normal family men and harmless ordinary people? In his study, Harald Welzer applies previously done social psychological research on group behavior and group processes to the mass killing of Jews. He describes how men from one of the battalions assisting the Einsatzgruppen – the special killing units – were introduced to the killing, how they did it, and how they adjusted to the situation – and eventually accepted the ‘job’ as a way to complete their 'historic duty'. Welzer shows that due to shifts in the social structure at individual and societal level, the crimes are not even perceived as inhuman acts. Within few weeks an attendant at mass in church can turn into a mass murderer if the appropriate social and situational environment pertains. On this background Welzer shortly examines the My-Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, the genocide in Rwanda and the ethnic cleansing in Ex-Yugoslavia. Welzer thus provides us with a new, and quite disturbing perspective on how perpetrators and the general will to kill are created through the process itself, which opens the possibility that everybody can become a perpetrator. Harald Welzer is director at Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research at Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, and Professor of Social-Psychologi. Welzer is interviewed by Senior Researcher, Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, from the Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS. Time: 3 April at 18.00 Venue: Malmö City Library (Stadsbiblioteket, Malmö) Free admission Language: English The program is organized by Forum for Living History, Stockholm in cooperation with Malmö City Library, The Goethe Institute in Sweden, and Daidalos. Read more |
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