Moral Endeavour of Nazi Judge Konrad Morgen (Morality in the Mechanics of Auschwitz)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description and analysis of the involvement of morality in the me­chanics of Auschwitz and is based on the moral biography of the Nazi judge Konrad Morgen. He is famous as “a fanatic for justice”, a fighter against corruption and “unpermitted killings” in the death camps. The principle of the unity of morality and law with the priority of morality was important for him and for the Nazi legal system in general. The kernel of the Nazi ethic is found in the separation of a person (will) and an act, what is more – an act is secondary, de­rived and even accidental to the acting person, having virtues, motives and intentions before and beyond an act. An act appears to be non-self-sufficient – a consequence, estimated accord­ing to the circumstances, motives, acting personality, or even excluded from the sphere of morality, which makes it the value basis of Auschwitz as an ultimate killing. Nazi ethic com­bines the idea of killing as a moral imperative in the struggle against evil with disapproval of killing committed not out of a sense of duty, but for various selfish reasons, profit motives, sadism or passion. It distinguishes between a killing, which is humane towards both the victim and the killer, and a cruel killing. It combines moral sensitivity of a Nazi with elimination of mass killing from it or calling what was taking place monstrous with calm virtuousness of ev­ery-day life. Morality suggests struggle against evil and the good of the neighbour or humanity as the reasons for killing and obstructing the disallowance of Auschwitz. Morgen’s attempt to be both moral and social became a form of collaboration with Auschwitz, personification of how moral ideas, norms, defining of good and evil, longing for the good of neighbour on the ground of prudence and realities of society form the Nazi ethic, which keeps all features of morality, such morality which is not based on the absolute rejection of killing.