Analysis Of Hoss By Primo Levi

The next example of how Primo Levi thinks Hoss’ memoirs are instructive because it shows how a man can turn to a radical totalitarian ideology like National Socialism and justify mass murder is when Hoss joins the SS. When Hoss joined the SS, he was assigned to a concentration camp called Dachau to be a drill instructor. It was in Dachau, where Hoss learned about the ideology of the dangerous ENEMIES OF THE STATE (Hoss,82). Hoss explains that inspector Theodore Eicke drilled home the concept of dangerous enemies of the state so convincingly in his lectures that all SS men serving in concentration camps developed a deep hatred for these enemies that no outsider could understand (Ibid,94). The Nazis set up educational institutions called Ordensburgen
Hoss provides an example as to how an ordinary person can follow a radical totalitarian ideology like National Socialism when he says, “the leadership by using propaganda and through its use of limitless terror has made a whole nation submissive to such an extent that, with a few exceptions, these people followed in every way, wherever they were led, without criticism and without a will of their own” (Ibid,182). This quote by Hoss relates to my essay because Hoss explains that just as he was influenced heavily by National Socialism, millions of others believed in the ideology just as he did and this is how the Nazi party gathered followers. Primo Levi would have adored this quote by Hoss because it shows that merely one man cannot bring harm to the world, but when one man brings forth a totalitarian ideology and rallies the masses to get people to follow this radical ideology then disaster can occur. The reason Primo Levi thinks this book is so important is because he believes that the Holocaust was not a one-time thing and that it could happen again because of the human nature of people to obey order and authority and the radical ideology of totalitarian regimes. Levi wants Hoss’ book to be a
Hoss explains that the years of SS training were made to make each SS soldier a tool without their own will so they would carry out orders. Hoss argues that the ideology of National Socialism transformed him into a blind obedient robot who was a cog in the terrible German extermination machine (Ibid,189). Hoss argues this statement as a plea for forgiveness before he is about to be hung, but also points out that even though thousands of SS soldiers committed these horrendous atrocities, they were in a way brainwashed in SS schools to carry out orders. Hoss’ final letters to his children are interesting and relate to society today because he explains to his children to not accept things as absolute truth and a one-sided opinion, just as he believed in National Socialism as absolute truth (Ibid,194). This part is intriguing because even though I think Hoss was a monster who was responsible for the deaths of over a million people, he draws on a key idea of how everyone should think in society where they should be wary of believing in ideologies fueled by hate to avoid something similar occurring to what happened in Nazi Germany. The epilogue of Death Dealer written by Steven Paskuly is extraordinary because I think it answers Primo Levi’s question of why the book is instructive as it shows how an