| Max-Weber-Kolleg, Forschung

Ethics of National Socialism - a contribution to understanding National Socialist moral justifications

If one wants to understand how the crimes of National Socialism were possible, it makes sense to look at the moral reasons that shaped the normative self-image of the acting actors. This topic is explored in the annotated volume of sources "Supposed Reasons - Ethics and Ethics in National Socialism", which now presents for the first time a biographically contextualized selection of texts by academic moral philosophers who distinguished themselves particularly in the "Drittes Reich".

The volume "Vermeintliche Gründe. Ethics and Ethics in National Socialism" was extensively commented and edited by Werner Konitzer, Johanna Bach, Jonas Balzer and David Palme (PhD student at the Max Weber College for Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt). Dealing with the moral justifications of the perpetrators, who regarded their actions as "good", "right" or "necessary", helps to better understand the connection between normative self-image and the crimes of National Socialism. In addition, the book enables a differentiated view of the development of moral philosophy after 1945.

Werner Konitzer, Johanna Bach, David Palme, Jonas Balzer (Eds.)
Vermeintliche Gründe
Ethik und Ethiken im Nationalsozialismus
(Wissenschaftliche Reihe des Fritz Bauer Instituts)
Campus Verlag, 2020
ISBN: 9783593510316
488 pages
39,95 EUR