Pre-Genocidal Societies: Nazi Germany and Cambodia Compared

Introduction

Between them, the genocidal societies of Nazi Germany and Cambodia murdered around 8 million innocent civilians before being stopped by the international community. Not surprisingly, the targeted civilians in these genocides were also subjected to enormous economic discrimination prior to these respective "final solutions," and these issues form the basis of this analysis. This paper explores the relevant literature to describe the structure and functions of these two pre-genocidal societies with an emphasis on economic discrimination, including the historical background, the stages that a society tends to experience preparatory to genocide, and the economic conditions within these modern states prior to genocide. In addition, an analysis of the economic conditions of the people persecuted and their role within the economy prior to genocide is followed by an assessment of how these two states economically discriminated in the years leading up to and during the genocide. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings is provided in the conclusion.

Historical Background of Germany and Cambodia Prior to Genocide

The stage was set for the rise of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei — the National Socialist German Workers' Party, abbreviated as "Nazi" (Munk 9). At this point in its history, Germany had been brought to its knees by World War I and the draconian terms of the Versailles Treaty, and the country was especially hard hit by the global economic downturn that followed the Great Depression. Writing while World War II was still being prosecuted, Munk advises that the pre-Nazi German economy was "born out of certain social and economic conditions: the decadence of genuine liberal competition, the end of laissez-faire, the vagaries of the trade cycle, the growing awareness of insecurity, unemployment, and frustration in both the classes and the masses" (9). In sum, Adolf Hitler was able to seize power due to the "deprivations and mood of Weimar Germany in the 1920s and 1930s" (Sneider 3).

More to the point, Hitler was also able to seize power during this turbulent period because of his focus on what he perceived to be the source of the country's problems: its Jewish population. Sneider confirms that "the consuming hatred for Jews and the belief in an all-powerful Jewish conspiracy [were] key to Hitler from his earliest days in politics" (3). By 1936, massive Nazi Party rallies were already taking place at Nuremberg, but many modern historians discount eyewitness reports concerning the economic conditions in pre-Nazi Germany because of officially assigned chaperones that limited observers' access to mainstream German society (Bonnell 1). What is known for certain is that beginning in the late 1920s, the Nazi Party leveraged resentment against the Versailles Treaty and the harsh economic conditions being experienced by the German people by making the Jewish population a scapegoat for Germany's problems. One historian reports that "from 1929 onwards, the worldwide economic depression provoked hyperinflation, social unrest and mass unemployment, to which Hitler offered scapegoats such as the Jews" (Nazi Germany 2).

Following Hitler's appointment as chancellor, the Jews in Germany found their predicament increasingly untenable. In 1935, the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws represented the beginning of institutionalized antisemitic persecution that would eventually become the genocide termed the "Final Solution" (Nazi Germany 3). The Final Solution can be said to have begun in early November 1938, when a teenaged Polish Jew purportedly attempted to assassinate the German Embassy's Second Secretary in Paris (Doescher 131). After the secretary died a few days later, the Nazi Party seized on this event as an excuse to launch a series of pogroms targeting German Jews in what has become known as "Kristallnacht" (Crystal Night, or Night of Broken Glass) (Doescher 132). According to Doescher, "During and after this spasm of violence and plunder, about 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where hundreds would perish in the following months" (132). The events of Kristallnacht provided Nazi leaders with the reassurance they needed that even more drastic antisemitic efforts would be supported by mainstream German society (Doescher 133). Doescher points out that Kristallnacht "clearly showed the Nazi regime that it could count on the wide support of the general population, both young and old, to support it in its anti-Semitic actions" (133).

Modern historians also discount the assertion that most German people were unaware of what was happening to the Jewish population. As Doescher concludes, "Kristallnacht clearly reveals the participation of all classes of society in the November nation-wide pogroms. The assertion voiced and heard in Germany during many post-war decades that nobody really knew what was happening to the Jews belongs in the world of myth" (133). The Kristallnacht pogrom, which occurred between November 9 and 10, 1938, is widely regarded today as representing the beginning of the end for German Jews. Jantzen and Durance report that "the Kristallnacht pogrom marks a point of transition between the escalating anti-Semitism of German politics in the 1930s and the massive violence associated with the Nazi wartime Holocaust" (538).

Emboldened by the outcome of Kristallnacht, the Nazi Party proceeded to persecute the remainder of the Jewish population in Germany and throughout the Reich. Although precise numbers are unavailable, there is a general consensus that at least six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Increasingly scarce German resources were still being diverted from the military to achieve the Final Solution up until the closing days of the war — an outcome that reflected Hitler's all-consuming dedication to this goal (Doescher 133).

The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, assumed control of Cambodia in April 1975 (Khmer Rouge history 2). During the period from 1975 through 1979, approximately 2 million innocent people — many of them professionals — were murdered under the regime of dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (Copeland 44). According to one modern historian, "The murderous spree of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and early 1979 led to the deaths of an estimated two million Cambodians, or roughly 25% of the population, including virtually every educated professional" (Metraux 176). These events followed more than 20 years of civil war and widespread aerial bombing of the country — partly with the aid of the United States — a process that devastated the country's economic infrastructure (Khmer Rouge history 3).

The harsh economic conditions that existed prior to the genocide in Cambodia were surpassed only by the aftermath of these events. Metraux advises that "there were only ten doctors in the country after the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. There were no teachers, health workers, or any functioning schools or hospitals. The national infrastructure was in total ruin" (176).

Even several Americans and other foreign nationals fell victim to Pol Pot's regime during this brutal period, and certainly the vast majority of the Cambodian people suffered, with most families losing at least one member (Metraux 176). As Metraux points out, "Nobody was left unscarred by the brutality of the Khmer Rouge, an intensely nationalistic regime that attempted to construct a puritanical Communist society where all people would live and work together as equals in massive rural communes" (176). Like the Nazis' targeting of Jews and other minorities, the Pol Pot regime likewise targeted foreigners, professionals, and even Cambodians with "an urban background" as enemies of the state (Metraux 176).

The two sites that experienced the most carnage were Tuol Sleng ("hill of the poisonous trees") — a former high school converted into the notorious prison "S-21" where civilians were tortured and killed — and Choeung Ek, also known as "the killing fields," due to the mass graves used for murdered victims (Copeland 44). According to Copeland, "Today, Tuol Sleng houses a genocide museum and Choeung Ek is the site of a Buddhist memorial park. Both sites receive one to two hundred visitors per day" (44). These two locations have since become major international tourist attractions. Metraux reports that "Pol Pot casts horror scenes of killing fields, genocide, and the virtual death of a nation. Ironically these images today are annually drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists to Cambodia" (176).

Because bullets were considered too expensive — the Khmer Rouge boasted to ordinary Cambodians that they manufactured their own bullets from scrap iron — most victims were killed in especially brutal ways, including smashing children's heads against what became known as "the killing tree," which had loudspeakers attached to mask the screams (Metraux 176). Modern historians acknowledge serious difficulty making full sense of the genocide. Metraux emphasizes that "the method of massacre which the Pol Pot criminals carried upon the innocent people of Kampuchea cannot be described fully and clearly in words because the invention of this killing method was strangely cruel so it is difficult for us to determine who they are for" (176).

A plaque posted by the Cambodian government near the killing tree further underscores the extremes taken by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, suggesting that the cruelty even transcended that of Hitler's Final Solution: "Even in this 20th century, on Kampuchean soil the clique of Pol Pot criminals had committed a heinous genocidal act. They massacred the population with atrocity in a large scale. It was more cruel than the genocidal act committed by the Hitler fascists, which the world has never met" (cited in Metraux 176). Although certain segments of Cambodian society were specifically targeted by the Khmer Rouge, the victims appear to have been largely random, making this genocidal episode especially inexplicable. The Cambodia Tribunal Monitor points out that "while the Khmer Rouge was in power, they set up policies that disregarded human life and produced repression and massacres on a massive scale. They turned the country into a huge detention center, which later became a graveyard for nearly two million people, including their own members and even some senior leaders" (Khmer Rouge history 4).

Stages That a Pre-Genocidal Society Experiences

The eight stages of genocide identified by Genocide Watch are as follows: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination, and denial (Gorton 421). All of these stages can be discerned in varying degrees in the years leading up to the genocide in Nazi Germany — with Jews and others being classified as undesirables, symbolized by the obligatory Star of David, dehumanized by German society, organized against by the Nazi Party, polarized into "master race" and racial inferiors, subjected to pilot tests of mass execution methods in preparation, ultimately exterminated in Nazi death camps, and subsequently denied by postwar German society. By sharp contrast, these stages are far less evident in the genocide carried out in Cambodia.

The definition of genocide provided by the International Law Commission states that "the distinguishing characteristic of the crime of genocide is the element of specific intent, which requires that certain acts be committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" (cited in Southwick 189). This definition is certainly applicable to the genocide in Nazi Germany, where Jews, Roma, the mentally ill, Catholics, and other minorities were specifically targeted. It is less clearly applicable to the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge, since all segments of Cambodian society were affected despite the overall targeting of professionals, foreigners, and those with an "urban background."

In any case, "certain acts" were carried out in both genocides, but the intent of Nazi Germany was more clearly defined in its goals compared to the practices of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. In Nazi Germany, Jews and other undesirables were systematically dehumanized by the mainstream press, the Nazi Party, and the German military to the point that exterminating them seemed, within that ideological framework, a logical course of action for a self-proclaimed master race. In Cambodia, however, the dehumanization process never fully unfolded, since genocidal actions by the Khmer Rouge began almost immediately upon their assumption of power, leaving little opportunity to cast targeted victims as subhuman. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that not all eight stages must be present for a genocide to occur. Certain economic conditions, nonetheless, can fuel genocidal violence, as discussed below.

Conclusion

The research showed that the genocide in Nazi Germany largely followed the eight classic stages of genocide, beginning with classification and culminating in denial. By contrast, the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge moved rapidly through these stages, culminating almost immediately in extermination. Rather than attempting to deny that these events took place, the current Cambodian government has, ironically, capitalized on them through international dark tourism. Despite the otherwise unfathomable nature of genocide, it is possible to understand how the Nazi Party exploited economic misery by blaming the Jews. It is far less clear how or why the Khmer Rouge would execute two million of its own citizens in an effort to transform the country into an agrarian collective — a distinction that makes the Cambodian genocide particularly difficult to explain using conventional frameworks of pre-genocidal analysis.

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