The Nazis are history’s archetypal villains.
The Nazis are undeniably fascinating. Those guys were just such scum. Human history is dirty with tin-pot dictators who coveted something and were willing to commit genocide to obtain it. The Nazis, however, truly industrialized the process.
The death camps were models of efficiency. Over the course of some 12 years, the Nazis systematically murdered 17 million people. That works out to around 1,400 souls per day.
It’s honestly tough to comprehend the scale. That’s like murdering every man, woman and child in New York City twice. Or killing my small Mississippi town 630 times over. What I have always found most intriguing, however, is how Hitler convinced so many people to be complicit with his outrage. One psychopath is a statistical inevitability. A whole culture full of them is a terrifying anomaly. While all Germans obviously didn’t support the Final Solution, you’ve got to admit that plenty of them did.
I would assert that the Germans in 1943 were not really fundamentally different from us today. To believe otherwise would be intrinsically racist, and racism is today’s unforgivable sin.
If we presume that this particular population was no different from that of any other comparably industrialized society, how then did they come to build these massive institutional death factories? They kept shoving human beings into them right up until we forced them to stop. Such a sordid outcome has to be due to some diabolical combination of nature versus nurture.
The Germans were indeed suffering in the lead-up to WWII. A historically proud people, they found themselves economically crushed international pariahs in a world trying desperately to claw its way out of the Great Depression. That this was a self-inflicted wound would be an easy thing to argue. However, theirs was an undeniably sordid lot.
Into this dark state of institutional hopelessness stepped Adolf Hitler — a former Austrian Corporal-turned-failed artist with an undeniable gift for oratory. His MO was timeless. Hitler convinced the German people that their problems were not of their own making. It was the Jews and similar so-called untermenschen who were responsible for their misery. Once things got ramped up, it was a short hop to the death camps. But there had to be something more.
It is one thing to sit in a board room and conjure up these satanic schemes. It is quite another to actually pull the trigger or throw the lever. Heinrich Himmler purportedly visited a death camp but once and was rendered physically ill by the experience. How, therefore, did the Germans find enough people willing to do those ghastly jobs?
We are not ourselves somehow innately immune to such darkness as this.
It behooves us to be ever vigilant as a result.
I would assert that this was perhaps easier than you might think. I assume that every advanced society has its own ready pool of potential death camp guards. Under the right circumstances, these people are normal citizens, living out their lives in peace as productive members of society. Under the wrong circumstances, they slip into their snazzy black uniforms and torture people to death en masse. You have likely met a few of these people. You might even be married to one.
Think back to the college professor who enjoys toying with your future. Your grade will determine whether your life succeeds or fails. When discussing the problem, you don’t get sympathy, support or understanding. The person across the desk is intoxicated by power and clearly enjoys it. Then there’s the traffic cop who pulls you over and obviously revels in the position of unquestioned authority.
Some institutions stratify people into two categories. You are either one of them or you are everybody else. The military was like that to a degree. Once people are properly stratified, it is not an impossible chore to take it to the next level.
The world is dirty with these people. Positions of authority attract them. Government bureaucrats, politicians, and folks in similar positions of extreme authority are susceptible. You just have to know where to look.
Now make no mistake, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers, college professors, and even politicians are not potential homicidal maniacs. They are altruistic good folks just making their way in the world. However, you can indeed see the outliers if you look for them. I personally find it easier to tolerate some of the world’s more abrasive personalities within this context. When I grow inevitably frustrated, I sometimes mutter, “Death camp guard” to myself. I find this cathartic.
Ruminations
The overarching point is this. We are intrinsically no better than the Nazis, the Soviets, or Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Additionally, just because somebody wears a uniform, possesses a laminated ID card, or attended some kind of special school doesn’t make them any more morally laudable than the rest of us. The Founding Fathers knew this. That’s why those brilliant old guys crafted the Bill of Rights as they did, to keep the potential death camp guards peacefully in their place.
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Very nice!
Duke’s luck brought him the better part of this German bcd4
sniper rifle from a rare visit to a pawn shop.
Luck? I couldn’t win a lottery if only two of us entered. Back in the 1970s, I once indulged in playing Blackjack at a Montana casino. After a while of steadily losing, the lovely gal dealing whispered to me, “Mister, you shouldn’t gamble.” More or less in my life I have lived her advice. When ignoring it I’ve paid the price!
That said: I have had some excellent luck in finding good guns and good gun deals. One of my best finds came out of a Montana pawn shop. But get this: I almost never go in pawn shops! Why? Because most firearms in them are run of the mill and fantastically overpriced.
The extra-wide left receiver rail told Duke this was one of the K98ks
built from the ground up to become a sniper rifle.
Kismet
One day Yvonne was having a minor medical procedure in Bozeman, Mont. Her doctor told me to come back in two hours and she would be ready to go home. Yvonne wanted me to pick up a few sacks of horse feed, which I did and was heading back to the hospital early. Passing a pawn shop on a rare whim I quickly turned into its parking lot.
As expected, their rifle racks and handgun counter had nothing of interest but I happened to glance behind the counter. There sat what was obviously a tampered-with military Mauser rifle. When asked what it was the counter fellow said, “It’s what’s left of a German sniper rifle.” Naturally I wanted to examine it and with a quick glance asked about its cost. The counter guy’s price was a giveaway so I nabbed it.
Brothers did I luck out! Examining it in my car, I quickly determined it was more than just a good buy. It was a K98k with the factory code of bcd4. (The German Wehrmacht put codes on almost all military equipment instead of manufacturers’ names.) The code meant my new rifle had been made at the Gustloff-Werke facility located in the city of Weimar. The “4” stood for the manufacturing date of 1944 and was likely the only time a German code used a single numeral for a year.
Most noteworthy is K98k Mausers coded bcd4 were intended from the very start of manufacture to become sniper rifles. Not all did but they were meant to be. The giveaway is the receiver’s left side rail is approximately 1/8″ thicker than other K98ks. The reason was so the side rail could then be planed flat on its exterior surface. Thusly the scope mount was affixed to a flat surface making it sturdy in combat conditions. Collectors have come to call this mount the long side rail. A short side rail version preceded it. Having the mounts’ flat surface attached to a rounded action rail resulted in easily loosened scope mounts from rough handling. My collection contains one of those also.
There was another feature particular to bcd4 Mausers I was not aware of at time of purchase — a checkered steel buttplate instead of smooth steel ones other K98ks wore. Mine has the proper buttplate.
Gun Butcher
Now you’re wondering why the counter guy said, “What’s left of a German sniper rifle.” It’s because some yahoo cut the stock off from rear barrel band forward, which also meant its forend cap with bayonet lug was missing. Duke does not fear trivia! Proper-era steel replacements were quickly found on the Internet. Also obtained was a broken K98k stock with its wood from barrel band forward intact. All that was needed was a good gunsmith and locally that was Rocky’s Gun Works of Logan, Mont.
What about mounts and a scope? I had on hand a German commercial Hensoldt 4x scope which could be war-time or post-war vintage. As the United States did with Weaver 2.5x scopes for their Model 1903A4 sniper rifles, early in the war German ordnance people gathered up scopes from the civilian market. For mounts I turned to a company called Accumounts that supplies replicas of most World War II sniper rifle mounts and even reproductions of some scopes. I’ve used their products for many years with satisfaction.
Within a reasonable time, Rocky called one day and said my rifle was ready. I hotfooted to his shop. He did an amazing job. If an observer didn’t know the wood from the barrel band forward was grafted onto the original stock, it wouldn’t be noticed. With a minor outlay of money, some questing for vintage parts and the efforts of a talented gunsmith, I became the owner of a fine shooting, mostly-original German K98k long-siderail sniper rifle.
And let’s not forget a healthy dose of luck!
They had more character than most people that I have met! Plus they were mega women magnets. Grumpy