For historians the Holocaust is among the most complex historical situations inFor historians the Holocaust is among the most complex historical situations in which to try to explain perpetrator behavior. This is partly because the Holocaust differs from other forms of mass killing because of its long-term, systematic, and controlled nature, and partly because the number of men (no women were actually involved in carrying out the face-to-face killing) who played a direct part in the genocide was very great, suggesting that any analysis of why they behaved the way they did must rely on a variety of explanations rather than a generic core (Lower, 2013). The most difficult methodological problem lies in the nature of the evidence. Much of the work on reconstructing the motivation of perpetrators in the Holocaust has relied on cross-examination material taken from participants
, as he awaited trial as a major war criminal, Robert Ley wrote a long and cogent repudiation of the right of the recently victorious Allies to try German leaders for war crimes. The Indictment served on Ley, and others, on 19 October 1945 claimed that '[a]ll the defendants … formulated and executed a common plan or conspiracy to commit Crimes against Humanity as defined'. Ley continued: 'Where is this plan? Show it to me. Where is the protocol or the fact that only those here accused met and said a single word about what the indictment refers to so monstrously? Not a thing of it is true.' 1 A few days later, Ley committed suicide in his cell rather than face the shame of a public trial. The unease about the legal basis of the trial was not confined to those who were to stand before it. Legal
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