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About this quote

What does it mean?
The author describes finding purpose in obedience and ideological commitment to a national idea.
In plain terms
He believed obeying made him part of history and committed to a mythical nation.
What can you take from it?
Obedience can be framed as historical duty.

Where it applies

  • political movements
  • authoritarian regimes

Putting it to work

  • justifying actions
  • building loyalty

Questions to consider

  • How does obedience shape identity?
  • What makes a nation mythical?

Another view

This view ignores individual moral responsibility.

More from Ernst Kaltenbrunner

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  3. Few of those who stood on the defendants' dock at the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 to 1946 …

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