"I have no bad conscience"
About this Quote
The chill of “I have no bad conscience” isn’t in its grammar; it’s in its administrative calm. Alois Brunner, a key Nazi deportation organizer, isn’t offering self-reflection or even bravado. He’s attempting something more strategic: laundering atrocity through the language of personal hygiene. Conscience becomes a private mood, like indigestion, rather than a moral faculty tethered to human beings and their deaths.
The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s defiance: a refusal to grant victims the last power they can claim over a perpetrator, the power to haunt him. Underneath, it’s an argument about legitimacy. Brunner’s phrasing implies that guilt is optional, a sentimental add-on to actions he frames as duty, policy, or efficiency. That’s the subtext of bureaucratic evil: if the work was “just work,” then remorse is an irrational luxury.
Context sharpens the line into a weapon. Brunner spent decades evading justice after the war, reportedly protected in Syria and wanted by multiple countries. “No bad conscience” functions as a retroactive alibi in a world where legal verdicts were delayed or denied. It also reads like a message to fellow ideologues: don’t concede the moral battlefield. Admitting guilt would mean admitting the victims’ humanity; denial preserves the hierarchy.
The phrase is short because it’s meant to be final. It tries to close the case not in court, but in history’s imagination. That’s why it lands with such disgust: it’s the sound of someone betting that time, distance, and procedural exhaustion will do what argument cannot.
The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s defiance: a refusal to grant victims the last power they can claim over a perpetrator, the power to haunt him. Underneath, it’s an argument about legitimacy. Brunner’s phrasing implies that guilt is optional, a sentimental add-on to actions he frames as duty, policy, or efficiency. That’s the subtext of bureaucratic evil: if the work was “just work,” then remorse is an irrational luxury.
Context sharpens the line into a weapon. Brunner spent decades evading justice after the war, reportedly protected in Syria and wanted by multiple countries. “No bad conscience” functions as a retroactive alibi in a world where legal verdicts were delayed or denied. It also reads like a message to fellow ideologues: don’t concede the moral battlefield. Admitting guilt would mean admitting the victims’ humanity; denial preserves the hierarchy.
The phrase is short because it’s meant to be final. It tries to close the case not in court, but in history’s imagination. That’s why it lands with such disgust: it’s the sound of someone betting that time, distance, and procedural exhaustion will do what argument cannot.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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