Himmler's Posen Speech
anecdote · historical ·
retold in 11 talks
Himmler told SS officers at Posen (Poznań) in 1943 that any idiot can sacrifice his life for his country but it takes a truly great patriot to do a bad thing, to kill, torture, suppressing even moral sentiment, for his country. The trick is to present your natural ethical resistance as narcissistic self-indulgence to be overcome.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 10
“It takes a truly great patriot to do a bad thing for your country... to crush even your elementary moral sentiment.”
“we have to teach our SS officers... people who are ready to sacrifice their good soul to kill children — that's the true heroism”
“The message is: you are in front of... Himmler... was bothered by true ethical... how could SS officers... do their dirty job... without becoming beasts themselves?”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
the big Other
×3
corruptio optimi pessima
×2
if God exists, everything is permitted
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Heinrich Himmler10Steven Weinberg5Pat Robertson3Henry Kissinger3Naomi Wolf2Salvador Allende2Alan Turing2Alejandro González Iñárritu2
alongside works
Every retelling 10
Himmler told SS officers at Posen (Poznań) in 1943 that any idiot can sacrifice his life for his country but it takes a truly great patriot to do a bad thing, to kill, torture, suppressing even moral sentiment, for his country. The trick is to present your natural ethical resistance as narcissistic self-indulgence to be overcome., illustrating fundamentalism as covert permissivity,sacrifice reframed as transgression,ideology and violence
Žižek cites Himmler's Poznań speech as the clearest case of ideology enabling atrocity: Himmler told SS officers that ordinary Germans can sacrifice themselves for Germany, but SS must be those ready to sacrifice their good soul, to kill children, as the true heroism., illustrating ideology and mass violence,religion/myth enabling atrocity,good people doing bad things
Himmler's speech frames the Holocaust as a 'glorious chapter' that will never be written, presenting the perpetrators as heroes who descended into hell to protect the innocence of the German people., illustrating ethics of 20th century,sincere hypocrisy
Heinrich Himmler told SS officers that their crimes must remain a secret 'empty page in history books' but would be the 'most glorious chapter of German history,' treating evil as a private patriotic duty., illustrating Big Other
Himmler told SS officers in Poznań that their murderous work must remain a secret, an empty page in history books, yet would be the most glorious chapter of German history, they at least treated it as a private dirty secret., illustrating disintegration of Big Other,ideology,Nazi vs Indonesian obscenity
In the October 1943 Posen speech, Himmler spoke openly of genocide as 'a glorious page in our history' and praised SS men for having 'remained decent' despite it, exemplifying the elevation of brutal aggression into principled 'true courage'., illustrating ethical evil,fascism and principled violence