How Dehumanization Leads to Murder and Genocide: Lessons from the Nazi Era

This book discusses psychological aspects of dehumanization and of the human tendency to dominate, control and potentially murder those considered less than or "other" by the dominant group. It explores how increasingly severe dehumanization resulted in the genocide of six million Jews in the second World War. Psychological and behavioral strategies Nazi aggressors and ordinary citizens used to mislead themselves during this process are described. Understanding the sequence of events from dehumanization to murder has implications for the apparent tendency of human beings to harm and potentially kill those who appear "different", or who are made into the "other". Efforts to prevent genocide should actively challenge dehumanization of weaker populations whenever possible, even when dehumanization appears mild, "insignificant," or "innocuous."

About the Author :
Stewart Gabel, MD, PhD, is currently working in an unaffiliated private practice of psychiatry. He is former Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital, Denver, and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine (1992-2002); Medical Director, Division of Children and Family Services, Office of Mental Health, New York State (2007-2012).

Review :
"This informative and accessible contribution to the burgeoning literature on dehumanization is the first and only book in the English language focusing specifically on the dehumanization of Jews during the Nazi regime. Highly recommended! "-- David Livingstone Smith, author of Making Monsters: Dehumanization and How to Resist It "This volume explores ways in which intolerance and enmity perniciously result in the dehumanization of individuals and groups, setting the stage for nothing less than the mass murder of entire groups and cultures. The author effectively shows ways in which othering and objectification wears away at any empathy and identification, an alienation that allows for nothing less than Genocide, a neologism invented only after the Shoah. The insidious nature of this turn is explored by the author using historical texts and individual stories. A compelling and necessary read for historians, mental health professionals, and students of history, sociology, psychohistory, and Jewish studies."-- Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, and author of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich: History, Memory, Tradition. Routledge, 2014 "Dr. Gabel, a child psychiatrist and historian, takes on the inexplicable. He probes what makes for and sustains history's horrific genocides. 'Behavior serves a purpose' helps in understanding motivations, including murder. But Dr. Gabel goes further with his core insight: that 'dehumanization' opens intrinsic psychological doors to allow for the progression from violence to murder to genocide. This is a deeply considered and scholarly book about what we have not been able to face."-- Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, Adjunct Professor, Columbia School of Public Health