"Both Hitler and various military commanders made the coercive zero-sum moral argument that pity and lenience toward the enemy and failure to overcome one's personal scruples was a "sin" against one's comrades and future generations. The combination of all these factors created a "competition for mercilessness" and a "culture of brutality" within units.

Thus "uncertainty and dissenting convictions seethed in the culture of cruelty," and "pangs of conscience" persisted."

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