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bureaucracies of the Third Reich or within the complex structures of corporations today. By foregrounding the role of white-collar perpetrators in the
Holocaust and other historical genocides, and by highlighting the collaboration between corporations and the state in history and today, it raises urgent questions about the meaning of responsibility and the deeply problematic nature of contemporary corporate behaviour. In his book, Gretton notes that: "In the early stages of this research I used the term 'desk murderer'. However, it soon became apparent that many of the individuals who kill from their desks do not have the criminal intent to do so, therefore âdesk killerâ is a more accurate term, Desk murderers do exist, but, thankfully, are very few. On the other hand, desk killers are all around us."
157:, a distinction is made between those who order murder and those who commit murder on their own initiative. Desk murderers who pass on orders from above would therefore be guilty only as accomplices to murder, but if they ordered any murders, they would be fully liable for them even if someone else carried them out. Some people, including lawyer
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in
January 1942. Only two of the participants actually took part in any killings. The other participants were involved in the planning and organisation of the Holocaust. This second group of officials was later classified as "desk murderers"; of this group, Adolf Eichmann was seen as the prototype
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in 1963, a book sometimes falsely credited with being the source of the term "desk murderer". In this book she described him and his associates as the "modern, state-employed mass murderers" and talks of the "bureaucracy of murder". She first used the term "desk murderer" in early 1965 but this was
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of a desk murderer. Despite his designation as a desk murderer, Eichmann did leave his desk and office and traveled to extermination camps such as
Sobibor, Auschwitz and Treblinka, becoming actively involved and knowing exactly what went on there. For this reason, some modern historians such as
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focuses beyond the intentionality of murder and examines the more complicated, and politically urgent, question of distanced killing, of how organisations and the individuals within them have been able to 'compartmentalise', to evade responsibility for their actions â whether in the rigid
161:, have recommended reducing the scope of the term "desk murderer" to those who directly ordered murders. Others use the term to refer to anyone who was part of the bureaucracy engaged with carrying out criminal orders, no matter how indirect their involvement. One example is
49:, was listed as one of the 100 most significant words in the German language in the 20th century and dates from around the same time as the English version. In the early 1970s the word
82:, responsible for the deportation of Jews from France during the German occupation, was, like Eichmann, seen as a stereotypical desk murderer and, like Eichmann, long escaped justice.
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in any of her German language publications. She used the term "desk murderer" in an
English introduction to the report by German journalist
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The term "desk murderer" has also been used in non-Holocaust contexts, such as during the
Auschwitz trial when the defence lawyer
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as somebody who made mass murder into an administrative task, was another high-ranking desk murderer during World War II.
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dispute that
Eichmann was a desk murderer, as he took too active an interest in the process of the Holocaust.
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for people supporting Israel, as, in his view, they thereby became accomplices in "crimes committed there".
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The planning of the
Holocaust, the genocide of the Jews, had one of its key points at the
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338:"The 'Desk Murderer' â Exhibition Marks 50-Year Anniversary of Eichmann Trial"
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I YOU WE THEM - Journeys Beyond Evil: The Desk
Killers in History and Today
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not translated into German at the time and she herself did not use
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The German origin of "desk murder" dates from 1964, when the
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and is used to describe state-employed mass murderers like
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in 1966 and, from there, it was translated to the German
424:[The bizarre career of the dead Gestapo chief].
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and
Eichmann's superior, described by British historian
367:[Historian: Eichmann was not a desk murderer].
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was included in the German standard dictionary, the
365:"Historikerin: Eichmann war kein SchreibtischtÀter"
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422:"Die bizarre Karriere des toten Gestapo-Chefs"
284:[The culprits behind the culprits].
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395:[Nazi collaborator Papon dead].
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450:'I You We Them: Journeys Beyond Evil'
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393:"Nazi-Kollaborateur Papon gestorben"
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45:The German translation of the term,
280:Jahr, Christoph (17 January 2017).
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420:Stark, Florian (31 October 2013).
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181:demanded the arrest of witness
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142:Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
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401:(in German). 18 February 2007
282:"Die TĂ€ter hinter den TĂ€tern"
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336:Smee, Jess (11 April 2011).
211:German far-right politician
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38:, who planned and organised
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373:(in German). 11 April 2011
130:Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
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483:German words and phrases
155:West German criminal law
149:Criminal responsibility
473:Planning the Holocaust
240:"Who Were the Guilty?"
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468:Holocaust terminology
109:Eichmann in Jerusalem
370:Hamburger Abendblatt
287:Neue ZĂŒrcher Zeitung
238:(17 February 2011).
310:"SchreibtischtÀter"
30:) is attributed to
167:Wannsee Conference
163:Ingeburg Werlemann
92:Robert S. Wistrich
69:Wannsee Conference
217:SchreibtischtÀter
183:Erich Markowitsch
134:SchreibtischtÀter
115:SchreibtischtÀter
74:Bettina Stangneth
51:SchreibtischtÀter
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27:SchreibtischtÀter
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18:"desk murderer"
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36:Adolf Eichmann
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205:I You We Them
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119:Bernd Naumann
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80:Maurice Papon
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40:the Holocaust
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32:Hannah Arendt
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213:Gerhard Frey
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478:Mass murder
430:(in German)
343:Der Spiegel
290:(in German)
236:Omer Bartov
194:Berlin Wall
186: [
159:Jan Schlöss
122: [
462:Categories
434:16 October
405:16 October
377:16 October
349:16 October
321:16 October
294:16 October
250:16 October
223:References
199:The book
173:Other use
169:of 1942.
16:The term
427:Die Welt
246:History
128:on the
88:Gestapo
63:History
153:Under
22:German
315:Duden
190:]
126:]
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436:2018
407:2018
379:2018
351:2018
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252:2018
244:BBC
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260:^
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20:(
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