tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post7733792271781060421..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Beast Men: Berserkir and Úlfhéðnar in the Viking AgeJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-82675114251008982932021-03-28T10:26:26.632-04:002021-03-28T10:26:26.632-04:00Actually, I wonder if we're both wrong. Perha...Actually, I wonder if we're both wrong. Perhaps showing fear of any kind, either for oneself or of killing others, would militate against being selected for berserk training from the get-go. From your description, it seems as if a strain of Viking culture regarded battle itself as a religious experience. So perhaps candidates for berserk training were chosen, or chose themselves, not from those who were battle-reluctant, but from those who were already ready to take battle, so to speak, to the next level. They were the excellent and worthy, not those who needed a little special bucking up. Just as those who were chosen or went in for shamanic training would probably not include the most concrete and least imaginative, so those who became berserks may already have been rather like that. It's not the tone-deaf who are admitted to conservatories.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-8755000181660319722021-03-28T09:47:37.345-04:002021-03-28T09:47:37.345-04:00That is, I would guess that those who ended up as ...That is, I would guess that those who ended up as berserks started out as pretty combat ready before they trained as berserks. Presumably Otto Schimke, the first of the Ordinary Men to take up Trapp's offer to bow out of shooting Jews, would not have been seen as beserker material.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-38305663840856287342021-03-28T09:27:10.156-04:002021-03-28T09:27:10.156-04:00@John
But surely, anyone who became a beserk was ...@John<br /><br />But surely, anyone who became a beserk was not likely to have been one of those who wouldn't kill in battle without the beserk training. Presumably, in setting up Viking expeditions, local leaders also knew whom to include, and whom to leave behind.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-62496151816850016842021-03-28T09:23:51.958-04:002021-03-28T09:23:51.958-04:00@Verloren
It's quite possible that we should ...@Verloren<br /><br />It's quite possible that we should put Browning's Ordinary Men in the context you do, of a world gone mad, trying to survive day to day, etc. It's also quite possible that the situation is more like what I depict, that it is not hard to get people to kill, especially in a context of routinization, both of the task and of obedience in a hierarchy. Browning himself allows for a wide variety of factors, including the possibility of imagined bad consequences--though, again, the soldiers in question do not seem to have mentioned that in their later interrogations, which were done by legal authorities, when you might imagine they would reach for exculpatory rationalizations like "I was afraid of being sent to the front." Some do admit to being afraid to be called names by their comrades.<br /><br />I'm sorry to have dragged the discussion so far from Viking battle-madness. My point was simply that Viking battle-madness may well have been more about other things than convincing men to kill. Overcoming fear for oneself, IMHO, must have been hugely important. I wonder if another element was simply to terrify the enemy into flight. To me, that would explain Icelandic scorn of beserks as much as Christianization--a kind of, "we're not afraid of your little arts and ways."<br /><br />Indeed, while a shamanic type has a famously honored place in the Icelandic story of their conversion to Christianity, my impression is that shamanic-type people are mostly either absent in the Icelandic sagas, or there's ambivalence (scorn for the berserks, or a kind of backhanded, fear-tinged respect for Old Ways that we're also sort of glad are no more, as personified in Egil). The sagas have a more whole-hearted admiration for types who give sensible, sober advice about how to win at law-cases. Then again, I'm really a dilettante in these Viking matters. There may well be shamans all over the Icelandic sagas that I'm simply too ignorant to notice. John?Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-52150703018975954272021-03-28T09:03:29.413-04:002021-03-28T09:03:29.413-04:00One point Browning makes in "Ordinary Men&quo...One point Browning makes in "Ordinary Men" is that not everybody in the unit participated in the killings, and others stepped up to do their share of the work. He emphasizes this to show that they did not necessarily face punishment for refusing to kill.<br /><br />In a battle, you need everyone to kill. An army where 20% shy from killing might be fatally weakened in a tough fight. Moderns armies worry about this a lot. Plus I would say that everyone in Nazi Germany had been subject to a lot of propaganda dehumanizing non-Germans.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-81637703448777828702021-03-27T22:56:33.412-04:002021-03-27T22:56:33.412-04:00@David
I think it's likely there are elements...@David<br /><br />I think it's likely there are elements of both things at play - preparing to kill, and also preparing to <i>be</i> killed.<br /><br />Warrior cultures often obsess over death, and with being prepared for it, and even actively seeking it out, if not outright committing suicide at times. For example, you see varying degrees of that in the code of bushido among the samurai, the code of chivalry among knights, the ibutho military system of the Zulu impi, etc.<br /><br />That said, you also see warrior cultures where fighting is less about seeking (or even dealing) death, and more about displays of bravery and the like.<br /><br />Italian condotierri famously objected to battles and tactics which produced high numbers of casualties for either side, considering it "bad war". Maori warriors had many practices that parallel the rituals and behaviors of groups like the Vikings or the Zulu (chanting, shouting, clattering of arms, performing hakas, attempting to appear terrifying with grimaces and face paint, etc), but they seemed to often prefer a more ritualized form of warfare that involved shows of force, saving of face / gaining of glory, and people then moving on to the negotiating table rather than the grave. And while groups like the Eagle and Jaguar warriors of the Aztecs might be considered "beast warriors" because of their other practices, it is worth noting that the Aztec "Flower Wars" were actually less about killing on the battlefield itself and primarily concerned with taking captives for later sacrifice.<br /><br />~~~~~~~<br /><br />As for the modern issue of the Nazis, I'm not sure there's a useful comparison to be made between warrior cultures like the berserkers and the poor schlubs who were assigned to do things like conduct the trains that transported people to the death camps. I honestly believe many of them didn't reflect on things at the time, because that's what people do when the feel like the entire world has gone crazy, there's little to no hope for the future, and they're just trying to keep their heads down long enough to survive.<br /><br />You don't need to directly threaten someone with punishment when they know that their awful, unbearable situation is still far and away more than they could have hoped for. When most German men are being sent to die monstrously in the Russian mud, who is going to complain about being put to work executing unarmed Poles? I take their saying that it was "just their job" to mean that they weren't happy about it, but "their job" could have easily been something much worse, and so they just went along with it and didn't think about, even without being threatened or punished, because how could they possibly hope for anything better? It was an insane time during WWII, the world had seemingly gone mad, and I suspect people just "did their jobs" because it meant they could survive each new day without things getting worse.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-89384490113594397192021-03-27T22:14:13.128-04:002021-03-27T22:14:13.128-04:00One of the men said afterwards, “Truthfully I must...One of the men said afterwards, “Truthfully I must say that at the time we didn’t reflect about it at all.”Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-62278111336731204642021-03-27T22:12:16.026-04:002021-03-27T22:12:16.026-04:00This is a fascinating piece, and I think your disc...This is a fascinating piece, and I think your discussion of the relationship of sheer ferocity to Viking success, and maybe even the whole of the Viking invasions, gets at some fundamental causes.<br /><br />Inevitably, I do have a quibble. I realize your opening sentence is more a hook than the point of your essay. That said, I wonder if the root purpose of the rites and practices you speak about was to overcome the reluctance to kill. I suspect the purpose may have been more to increase the participants' ability to face their own death, or indeed to ignore the risk of it. It may also have allowed them to fight longer and more actively than others without tiring.<br /><br />But as far as getting people to kill, modern experience does not indicate that this is necessarily that difficult, especially when the target is unarmed. Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men is a classic study of a battalion of poorly-trained, middle-aged, not-very-Nazi Germans who, over the course of a year, shot approximately 38,000 Polish Jews and escorted about 45,000 directly to the death camps (the ones where people were gassed upon arrival). About 10-20% of the men consistently managed to avoid such duty, and none were significantly punished for doing so, including those who forthrightly and publicly refused to follow these orders. Browning asserts that this is consistent with the broader record: according to him, no German soldier was seriously punished for refusing to kill civilians (although tens of thousands were shot for refusing to fight armed opponents). Most seem to have carried out their work because it was, well, their job. They did what they were told because that's what one does. These men were closely interviewed after the war, and, according to Browning, none explained their actions by Nazi indoctrination, fear of punishment, or because they felt any savage joy in killing. It was all pretty routine. They do report that copious alcohol helped.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.com