Degree Name
MA (Master of Arts)
Program
History
Date of Award
5-2026
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Stephen Fritz
Committee Members
Dinah Mayo-Bobee, Brian Maxson
Abstract
This study examines members of the Nazi Schutzstaffel from an occupational perspective, focusing on how professional roles shaped their participation in systematic mass murder. As National Socialism gained influence in interwar Germany, it coincided with the rise of a generation of ambitious and embittered men eager to distinguish themselves. The transition from the T4 Program (1939-1941), the involuntary euthanasia of disabled Germans, to Operation Reinhard (1942-1943), the extermination of Polish Jews, demonstrates how mass murder evolved into a career path, as each of the men examined served as T4 personnel before transferring to Poland to assume positions as extermination camp commandants. I argue that these men were motivated by vindicatory careerism, a term I created to describe a distinct form of career pursuit within the SS driven by the desire to prove oneself driven by the desire to prove oneself and secure a place in Adolf Hitler’s envisioned Germany.
Document Type
Thesis - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Bare, Bethany G., "Rationalizing Atrocity: Vindicatory Careerism and Mass Murder as a Career Path, 1939-1943" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4651. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/4651
Copyright
Copyright by the author.
