Into That Darkness Analytical Essay

Gitta Sereny's book "Into That Darkness" illustrated a disturbing perspective into the life of Franz Stangl, a former police officer of Schloss Hartheim which was part of the Nazi's Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4 program) of murdering individuals with disabilities, he was also a former SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka camps. Stangl was held accountable for the deaths of thousands of Jewish people and other minorities during the Holocaust, with this, Sereny sought to understand how a seemingly average and intelligent individual such as Stangl could take part in participating in genocide. Stangl attempts to resolve his cognitive dissonance through the rationalization of his actions, manipulating his memory of events through selective attention,

During Franz Stangl's career with the police force and as commandant of both Sobibor and Treblinka, Stangl frequently tries to rationalize his thoughts and actions to attempt to resolve his cognitive dissonance to minimize the guilt that turmoils him. For instance, in November 1940, Stangl was ordered to report to Kriminalrath Werner to take on a difficult occupation as a police superintendent of the secretive Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin. At the time of his transfer, Stangl said to Sereny that he did not know the true purpose of the facility until Werner explained the “mercy-killings” of individuals who had disabilities or were deemed clinically insane. Werner then went on to explain how these practices were apart of the civilized world since America and Russia had similar institutes of carrying out euthanasia. In addition, Werner exclaimed how patients were not merely murdered, they had to go through an intensive

While reflecting on his time in Treblinka, Stangl often avoided referring to the victims as people instead he called them "cargo" and "transport", and stated that he never really viewed the victims as individuals, just a huge mass. Sereny then directly asked if he felt that Jews were not human beings, he responded by comparing Jews to cattle in a slaughterhouse and how he could not eat tinned meat during his time in Brazil. By Stangl perceived Jews as a "huge mass" and "cargo", it allowed him to emotionally distance himself from the horrors of Treblinka. Stangl dehumanizing Jews and other victims aided in the resolution of his cognitive dissonance, since to him, the victims were not considered human thus it was more plausible to carry out acts of mass