Was the holocaust of Nazi Germany legal?
During the postwar Nuremberg trials in 1946, the defendants "...German judges and Justice Ministry officials, offered as their lead defense the point that they were now being prosecuted for acts that were perfectly legal under German law."[1] The German people, having rejected God's objective moral laws in favor of materialism, evolution and the principles of Conventionalism[2] ─ where moral principles are justified by virtue of cultural acceptance, expressed through its customs, and enforced by laws ─ degenerated into a murderous society.
This was not a primitive society of illiterate citizens: Germany was an advanced society with well-educated citizens and a sophisticated legal system. The sad fact is that legal sophistication did not inoculate German law and German legal actors from actively participating in the perverse transformation of the German legal system during the Nazi era. This included the legal exclusion of German Jews from the concept of “citizen,” and the Nuremberg Race Laws that gradually transformed the noncitizen Jew into a subhuman not worthy of life. By the time the gas vans came and the human slaughter factories were built in Auschwitz ...the murder of the six million Jews and other persecuted minorities was done completely within the framework of German law."[3]
What the German people lacked was a commitment to a philosophy of life based on the truth. Instead, they modeled their institutions, culture, and morality based on self-interest. "When self-interest rules, it has a profound impact on behavior, especially affecting how we treat other human beings."[4] These personal beliefs were then modeled by their leaders, judges, and lawyers and codified into laws.
The events surrounding the Third Reich serve as a warning to our society today. All around us, we see the signs of societal decay, the loss of modesty and courtesy coarsened into a society where the pursuit personal liberty "without consequences" is the highest goal in life. At the height of the Third Reich, having a society disconnected from all objective moral concepts of good and evil, we saw “...acts of ordinary people in the ordinary course of events within ordinary governmental and legal structures. . .even while Auschwitz spewed its smoke and ash. . . . Law continued while six million died"[5]
This should serve as a stark reminder to our society that making something "legal" does not make it "right."Distinguishing between what is legal and what is right "...was directly confronted during the famous Hart-Fuller debates of the 1950s and 1960s. British legal scholar H. L. A. Hart and his American counterpart, Lon Fuller of Harvard, were among the foremost legal theorists of the twentieth century. Hart was a positivist par excellence who argued that Nazi laws, though wicked, were like any other laws that must be obeyed. Fuller, a proponent of natural law, contended that...since Nazi laws were immoral, they could not be granted the status of law."[6]
This is a critical debate that must be resolved, because the" ...law is normative. It is statements by the lawmakers of what they want society to be. The law sets out the legislator's ideal. Legal discourse is a discourse about what ought to be."[7] When one person embraces ethical subjectivism,[8] the harm caused to others by the sociopathic behaviors of that person will usually be restricted to his or her limited circle of friends, family and co-workers (if he or she can keep a job). But when ethical relativism is embraced by society at large, and the majority or ruling elite then enforces its will through the legal apparatus of government, it ends with death camps.
When a society rejects moral absolutes as the guiding principle for making and enforcing the law, "...the difference between what a person has the liberty to do under the law and what a person should do"[9] is erased. Right and wrong become what the majority or ruling elites 'say' it is. When a society has fully embraced conventionalism, a consequence is that moral reformation of that society from within becomes impossible. "When any human court is the highest authority, then morality is reduced to mere power ─ either power of the government or power of the majority. If courts and laws defined what is moral, then neither laws nor governments can ever be immoral, even in principle."[10]
A recent wave of judicial activism aimed at Christians exhibiting their faith, and the lack of national outcry, show our courts may be slipping away from us already.[11] We must address the moral decay that has pervaded every aspect of our society and is destroying it from within ─ and time is short. Nationally syndicated columnist and talk radio host Dennis Prager notes, "...it is possible that some societies have declined as rapidly as America since the 1960's, but I am not aware of any."[12]
To respond to the intellectual and moral cancer of Normative Ethical Relativism, Christians must learn apologetics to challenge fallacious arguments about the source and nature of Morals[13], and defend the proposition that moral absolutes exist for all people for all time. Judges must be held accountable for applying relativistic morality in courtrooms by vigilant activism of citizens who vote and inform their legislators who confirm judges and can have them recalled. Churches must teach truth in love and educate the next generation in logic, reasoning, and the grounding of our American heritage. If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.[14] In the recent past, in a western democracy, that road 'leading anywhere' has led to holocaust.
The events surrounding the Third Reich serve as a warning to our society today. All around us, we see the signs of societal decay, the loss of modesty and courtesy coarsened into a society where the pursuit personal liberty "without consequences" is the highest goal in life. At the height of the Third Reich, having a society disconnected from all objective moral concepts of good and evil, we saw “...acts of ordinary people in the ordinary course of events within ordinary governmental and legal structures. . .even while Auschwitz spewed its smoke and ash. . . . Law continued while six million died"[5]
This should serve as a stark reminder to our society that making something "legal" does not make it "right."Distinguishing between what is legal and what is right "...was directly confronted during the famous Hart-Fuller debates of the 1950s and 1960s. British legal scholar H. L. A. Hart and his American counterpart, Lon Fuller of Harvard, were among the foremost legal theorists of the twentieth century. Hart was a positivist par excellence who argued that Nazi laws, though wicked, were like any other laws that must be obeyed. Fuller, a proponent of natural law, contended that...since Nazi laws were immoral, they could not be granted the status of law."[6]
This is a critical debate that must be resolved, because the" ...law is normative. It is statements by the lawmakers of what they want society to be. The law sets out the legislator's ideal. Legal discourse is a discourse about what ought to be."[7] When one person embraces ethical subjectivism,[8] the harm caused to others by the sociopathic behaviors of that person will usually be restricted to his or her limited circle of friends, family and co-workers (if he or she can keep a job). But when ethical relativism is embraced by society at large, and the majority or ruling elite then enforces its will through the legal apparatus of government, it ends with death camps.
When a society rejects moral absolutes as the guiding principle for making and enforcing the law, "...the difference between what a person has the liberty to do under the law and what a person should do"[9] is erased. Right and wrong become what the majority or ruling elites 'say' it is. When a society has fully embraced conventionalism, a consequence is that moral reformation of that society from within becomes impossible. "When any human court is the highest authority, then morality is reduced to mere power ─ either power of the government or power of the majority. If courts and laws defined what is moral, then neither laws nor governments can ever be immoral, even in principle."[10]
A recent wave of judicial activism aimed at Christians exhibiting their faith, and the lack of national outcry, show our courts may be slipping away from us already.[11] We must address the moral decay that has pervaded every aspect of our society and is destroying it from within ─ and time is short. Nationally syndicated columnist and talk radio host Dennis Prager notes, "...it is possible that some societies have declined as rapidly as America since the 1960's, but I am not aware of any."[12]
To respond to the intellectual and moral cancer of Normative Ethical Relativism, Christians must learn apologetics to challenge fallacious arguments about the source and nature of Morals[13], and defend the proposition that moral absolutes exist for all people for all time. Judges must be held accountable for applying relativistic morality in courtrooms by vigilant activism of citizens who vote and inform their legislators who confirm judges and can have them recalled. Churches must teach truth in love and educate the next generation in logic, reasoning, and the grounding of our American heritage. If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.[14] In the recent past, in a western democracy, that road 'leading anywhere' has led to holocaust.
For additional articles on this subject, see:
Theology: Doctrine of God part 1
[2] and Greg Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998) p. 37 ["Society Says Relativism, also known as conventionalism or normative ethical relativism, teaches that all people out to act in keeping with their own society's code. What is right for one society isn't necessarily right for another."]
[4] and Koukl, p. 21
[8] and Koukl, p. 38 [Ethical Subjectivism, also known as "I Say Relativism" or Individual Ethical Relativism is defined by the authors as each person acting as his conscience dictates, where individual preferences offer the only guideline to behavior.]
[9] and Koukl, p. 52 [quoted in context, emphasis in the original]
[10] and Koukl, p. 52
[11] Curtis Skinner, "Washington state judge rules against florist who refused gay wedding," Reuters, February 19, 2015, http://www.srnnews.com/washington-state-judge-rules-against-florist-who-refused-gay-wedding/
[12] Dennis Prager, "Just Another Two Days in the Decline of America," The Prager Perspective, 1 January 1997 p. 1
[13] 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, 1 Peter 3:15
