A Commandant's View

I thought it was unfair that he had to do the job of liquidations. Stangl had taken months to get used to doing his job, seeing the naked, poor, grimy bodies of the victims. The way Stangl described what he had done, it did not change much of my opinion of the Nazis. The part that it did change was that I thought they would be a little bit more regretful of what they had done. Also, I thought that he would think that he could have had the chance to try to stop the cruelty of the Nazi's ways, but he said he "no, no, no". He thought that he had NO chance in changing history in a good way. Stangl said "This was the system. Wirth had invented it. It worked. And because it worked, it was irreversible.” This is why he thought he could not change anything to be less cruel, although, I thought Nazi's would regret their decisions more than they do in reality.

In order to detached himself from what he was actually doing during his job, he had thought of good thoughts. This reminds me of when my parents used to tell me to have good thoughts once I woke up from a nightmare. This is the same situation, but 100 times worse. Although this strategy eventually worked for Stangl, it took him months to get used to the liquidations of humans. He had tried to avoid thinking about what he had done at night when he went to bed, by drinking, drinking, and drinking more alcohol. Personally, I think no matter what the strategy, it should not had been used, the brutality of the situation should not have been avoided, instead, acted upon and rebelled against. Although these are my thoughts from my point of view, Stangl just did not want to bare with living and thinking about what he had done and see about so many people that were killed unnecessarily. His tactics worked for him, so in a way, his tactics were good because they were successful.

Based on Stangl's responses, I do not think he regretted what he had done. He states, "'No,' he said slowly, 'I can’t say I ever thought that way.' He paused. 'You see,' he then continued, still speaking with this extreme seriousness and obviously intent on finding a new truth within himself, 'I rarely saw them as individuals. It was always a huge mass. I sometimes stood on the wall and saw them in the tube. But – how can I explain it – they were naked, packed together, running, being driven with whips like...' the sentence trailed off." This was his answer to when he was asked this question: “There were so many children, did they ever make you think of your children, of how you would feel in the position of those parents?” His answer explains that he did not think about the people individually, he did not care for them, because they were in huge masses. If he did not care for the people, then that gives him a reason not to regret what he had done. Also, another quote by Stangl was, “No, I don’t mean to; of course, thoughts came. But I forced them away. I made myself concentrate on work, work and again work.” He said this about when he was asked if he ever thought about what he did, when he went home at night. He also said he drank to clear his mind from it. This shows that he tried not to remember what he had done to so many innocent people, so it makes it harder for him to regret anything. Overall, I think he may have regret what he done a little bit, but majority, no, he did not regret.