Instruments of Murder - Leadership Styles and Compliance in the SS-Einsatzgruppen
The article follows two Einsatzgruppen officers and explores how their leadership styles encouraged rank and file members under their command to participate in mass executions. Reading into post-war testimonies, the study traces the historical, social, and organisational factors that shaped the officers’ approaches, and how they manifested during their Einsatzgruppen operations. The inquiry utilises social psychology to distinguish and characterize each leadership style, and to assess how their separate and combined influences prompted followers’ apparent willingness to participate in mass murder.
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