Auschwitz's Techno-Scientific Core

项目摘要ses 0408827Michael Allen，独立学者“奥斯威辛的科技核心：大屠杀与科技的政治宗教”本项目提出了奥斯威辛大屠杀科技核心的新历史。虽然以前的研究主要集中在火葬场和毒气室，以工厂般的方式灭绝欧洲犹太人，但学者们的研究没有任何科学和技术研究的基础。因此，现有的历史是不可信的，甚至是扭曲的。特别是，他们是在一个隐含的假设下运作的，即“技术决定论”导致了奥斯维辛大屠杀的独特活力。他们依赖PI称之为“技术官僚”的解释。这种观点认为，工程师和科学家没有意识到他们工作的意义，由于全神贯注于琐碎的技术细节或不透明的大型等级官僚机构，他们一直处于无知状态。因此，奥斯维辛大屠杀在他们的控制下慢慢演变，而他们没有任何意图这样做。只有当人们承认技术官僚通常缺乏智力或探究自由来辨别他们在做什么或为什么这样做时，这一点才容易让人相信。但是，如果奥斯维辛真的是一个现代科技官僚机构（它确实是），这似乎不太可能。PI建议从STS中引入新的来源和新的方法，以进行大屠杀研究和德国历史。PI将应用STS中发展的更复杂的科学、技术、政治和意识形态方法。相反，奥斯维辛大屠杀的技术-科学核心的历史将促进STS在意识形态、科学和技术之间相互作用方面的持续兴趣。调查团将通过包括技术和科学期刊以及机构记录在内的各种来源，调查建造和运营奥斯维辛死亡集中营的人的实质性意识形态。此外，通过将奥斯维辛大屠杀的技术-科学核心作为一个整体的大型技术系统来对待，PI将向大屠杀受害者的声音开放研究。技术官僚对奥斯维辛的解释，只有在人们草率地无视这些高素质专业人士的经验和证词的情况下，才能站得住脚。许多人被迫在党卫军的灭绝机器中担任工人、技术人员、绘图员、医生或工程师。他们的观点使我们能够更准确地评估大屠杀。他们所受的训练往往与俘虏他们的人不相上下，甚至更胜一筹。在战后的证词中，他们反复提到奥斯维辛负责任的工程师和管理人员在整个战争过程中如何与欧洲各地的同事保持稳定的沟通；以及他们如何认识到纳粹对机械杀人手段的追求，并对种族灭绝的工程表达了热情。

Project AbstractSES 0408827Michael Allen, Independent Scholar"Auschwitz's Techno-Scientific Core: The Holocaust and the Political Religion of Science and Technology"This project proposes a new history of the techno-scientific core of the Holocaust at Auschwitz. Although previous studies have focused upon the crematoria and gas chambers for the factory-like extermination of the European Jews, scholars have done so without any foundation in science and technology studies (STS). In consequence, existing histories are unconvincing and even distorted. In particular, they have operated under the implicit assumption that a "technological determinism" caused the unique dynamism of the Holocaust at Auschwitz. They rely upon what the PI labels a "technocratic" interpretation. This holds that engineers and scientists were unaware of the implications of their work and remained in ignorance due to engrossing petty technical detail or opaque large, hierarchical bureaucracies. In consequence, the Holocaust at Auschwitz slowly evolved under their hands without any intent upon their part for it to do so. This is readily believable only if one concedes that technocrats routinely lack the intellectual capacity or freedom of inquiry to discern what they are doing or why. But if Auschwitz truly was a modern techno-scientific bureaucracy, which it surely was, this seems unlikely. The PI proposes to introduce new sources and new approaches drawn from STS to Holocaust Studies and German history. The PI will apply the more sophisticated approaches to science, technology, politics, and ideology developed within STS. Conversely, a history of the techno-scientific core of the Holocaust at Auschwitz will advance the sustained interest in STS in interactions between ideology, science and technology. The PI will investigate the substantive ideology of those who built and operated the Auschwitz death camp through a variety of sources including technical and scientific journals as well as institutional records. In addition, by treating the techno-scientific core of the Holocaust at Auschwitz as a large technological system in its entirety, the PI will open up research to the voices of the Holocaust's victims. Technocratic interpretations of Auschwitz can remain tenable only as long as one summarily dismisses the experience and testimony of these highly qualified professionals. Many were compelled to serve within the SS's machinery of extermination as workers, technicians, drafters, doctors, or engineers. Their perspective allows a more accurate assessment of the Holocaust. Not infrequently they possessed training that was equal and even superior to that of their captors. In post-war testimony, they repeatedly related how the responsible engineers and managers of Auschwitz communicated steadily with their fellows throughout Europe during the entire course of the war; and how they were cognizant of the Nazis' quest for mechanical means of killing and expressed enthusiasm for the engineering of genocide.