> In fact, seeing the gas vans up close was disturbing to Eichmann, as it would be to anyone.
And the gas vans (and chambers) were already an deliberate effort to make mass murder more palatable to those committing it.
In the early stages, the Holocaust was done not with gas, but with bullets. But the Nazi leadership found that their troops could not stomach mass shootings, not even the SS. Many started to drink too much, or started to talk too much. A few reveled in it - which in turn was something the leadership could not stomach: they had framed the actions to themselves as distasteful but crucial to ensure the survival of the German people, they did not want it to be executed by homicidal maniacs.
Thus, gas chambers: the person pressing the button doesn't have to see people die, and the disposal of the bodies can be outsourced to local labor, even to future victims.
There are present-day analogies here as well. First the detachment of fighter pilots, even more extreme with (predator) drone pilots, where dropping bombs on cars, buildings, the occasional wedding, became an actual 9-to-5 job.
Once the focus shifts to autonomous drones, I guess we'll get the next stage of that detachment, for the software engineers that developed those things. You can write a cool tech blog about how you designed the training pipeline for your killing machine...
And the gas vans (and chambers) were already an deliberate effort to make mass murder more palatable to those committing it.
In the early stages, the Holocaust was done not with gas, but with bullets. But the Nazi leadership found that their troops could not stomach mass shootings, not even the SS. Many started to drink too much, or started to talk too much. A few reveled in it - which in turn was something the leadership could not stomach: they had framed the actions to themselves as distasteful but crucial to ensure the survival of the German people, they did not want it to be executed by homicidal maniacs.
Thus, gas chambers: the person pressing the button doesn't have to see people die, and the disposal of the bodies can be outsourced to local labor, even to future victims.
Much easier on the conscience.