Hoss Milgram Experiment Analysis

This argument is interesting when applied to Hoss because he was farther away from the killing process as the Commandant of Auschwitz and did not directly kill the prisoners, therefore Hoss felt that the responsibility of the killing lay on the hands of his superiors, like Himmler, because he was passing down orders from higher authority. The frightening thing about the Milgram experiment is that it proves that Hoss’ makeup was not dissimilar from that of any ordinary person and if any ordinary person was put in the situation of Hoss to carry out the extermination of people, they would follow through with these orders just like how the 65% of people followed through with the electric shocks of the actor. Milgram also added factors like socialization through family, school, and military service where the scientists told these volunteers that it was their duty,
Milgram strongly believed that ideology proves to be a huge factor in how it controls a person’s behavior and therefore when ideological justification is added to a volunteer like socialization and trigger words then the willingness to be obedient is increased in the individual because it permits the person to see his behavior as serving a desirable end (Browning,176). The Milgram experiment is spectacular because it proves my argument as to how through orders from higher authority coupled with the radical totalitarian ideology of National Socialism to protect Germany that ordinary men, like Rudolf Hoss, were able to justify the orders of exterminating over a million of people at Auschwitz.
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