Carpe Horas

Geständnis

Gefunden in den Akten von Herr J-----, Inspektor der Sicherheitspolizei und SD, nach seinem Selbstmord, 1944:

It is necessary to recognize only two types of people in this world: those within society and those without it.  The first, lawful, members and supporters of the State; the second, lawless, dangerous to order and to the lawful—some, Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, born to inferior and antisocial races and cultures; others aligning themselves against the State by choice.  All justice derives from the protection of the lawful from the lawless.

In my years of service to the Reich I have committed a single crime against society, order, and the State, and that crime was to hide my ancestry.  Eager to serve justice, eager to establish myself as a law-abiding citizen—eager, in short, to be a member of the first group, a member of society—and feeling no connection with the Gypsy blood that ran in my veins, I lied.  My ideals were pure, though my blood could never be.  I was foolish enough to believe that by becoming an enforcer of justice I might make myself once and for all a lawful man.

I do not know if it is that Gypsy blood which now calls me to question my place, only that I cannot revert to being faultless and upright now that I have questioned and found validity in my questions.  Until now everything had been clear: righteousness is justice and the State is just.  How can it not be, when it so clearly works to protect the innocent from those outside the law?

And yet, having received undeniable proof of righteousness from the prisoner V------, a Jew, a convict, a man in every way beyond the pale of society, I am forced to question the justice of the State.  In a world where such a man can be righteous, it would be an error to define justice as the war of the insider upon the outsider.  In such a world, where the State is not just and where justice is not the whole of morality, our actions would be both absurd and deplorable.  Eliminating outsider populations is only justifiable if the fact of being outside society is of itself a crime that precludes any possibility of merit, morality, or redemption.

It is not for one man to judge an entire people and an entire body of law; yet until now I had not entertained the possibility that the people and the law might be judged at all.  Regardless of my fitness to give verdict, in light of the actions of V------, I am increasingly of the opinion that this Reich has committed grievous atrocities.  Only two possibilities remain:

1. The State is responsible for monstrous and unjust deeds.  I, who have acted all my life on behalf of the State, have therefore acted unjustly, when it has been my life's work to be a just and irreproachable man.  I have also, on behalf of the State, helped carry out its atrocities, and cannot in good conscience continue to do so or allow myself to go unpunished.

2. As stated above, justice is the preservation of the lawful and the elimination of the unlawful.  Even were it not for the fact of my ancestry, by concluding against this vision of justice I have placed myself irretrievably on the side of the outsiders and therefore have no business remaining in this world.

No matter which, in the end, is correct, both possibilities lead me to the same course of action.  I leave it for God to decide who is right.

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