Was it hard for German soldiers to look into the eyes of victims when they were shot by them during WWII?


 It is a very dark thing to talk about, but to understand history we have to look at the truth. Many people ask why the prisoners had to turn their backs during such tragic times. Most think that it was for the victim, but the reality is much within colder. It was actually in the interest of the mental health of the Nazi soldiers.

In the beginning these mobile units used to shoot people at very close range. But the Nazi leaders encountered a problem they had not anticipated: their own men were falling apart. Even with all that hateful training, it is difficult for a man to look into the eyes of another human being and pull the trigger. Many of these soldiers resorted to heavy drinking or suffered a total mental breakdown. They just couldn't deal with the human side of it.


There is the story about Heinrich Himmler, one of the top leaders, who went to view a mass shooting in Minsk in 1941. He actually got sick off watching it. He didn't care about the poor people dying but he was scared his Soldiers would become unfit for war because of the stress.


By making people turn their back, the victim become faceless. It is easier to pull a trigger if you don't see a face looking back at you. It made murder mechanical. Eventually, this is why they constructed the gas chambers. They wanted a means of killing at a distance so that they never needed to see the people in person.

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