Defending Alignment: Mimetics, Rationalization, and Rhetorical Fallacies Among Physicists in the Third Reich

SAGE Open

Stephan Schwarz¹ 

关键词: physics in Nazi Germany;    alignment;    Persilschein;    bygonism;    Werner Heisenberg;    Otto Hahn;    Max Planck;    Max von Laue;    cognitive dissonance reduction;    rhetorical fallacy;   

DOI  :  10.1177/2158244016643565

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

After the rise to power of the German National Socialist Party (January 30, 1933), German academia soon realized that a requirement for “muddling through” was to avoid the stigma of being regarded as “politically unreliable,” thus to appear aligned and loyal to the state policies. The focus is here on the physics community. A rhetoric of alignment developed with the objective to justify collaboration as a rational and morally justified strategy. In the early post-war years, the rhetoric was reoriented to deny any involvement (other than as resistance) systematically using a conceptual framework foreshadowing the principles of Cognitive Dissonance Reduction (CDR) and the related framework of Rhetorical (Informal) Fallacies. This affinity is here studied with reference to statements from the period.

【 授权许可】

CC BY