ews, escaped to Argentina after WWII. In 1960 Israeli agents captured him and brought to Israel, where he was tried as a war criminal and sentenced to death. Eichmann maintained that he was merely following orders in arranging the murders of his victims. The man who actually dropped the Cyclon-b into the gas chambers was able to justify his actions on the grounds he was following orders from above - Eichmann. They both yielded to authority and norms, but in doing so attempted to justify their own actions and diverted responsibility (Behrens and Rosen, 2000). Norms - standards of conduct within a group are crucial to a groups survival or success. Loyalty, sacrifice, and bravery have utility in groups involved in conflict and armed struggle and codes of behavior reduce chaos. Theories from sociobiology draw from Charles Darwin argue that grouping together has survival value for humans (Baron, Kerr, & Miller, 1992). Leon Festingers theory of social comparison is an attempt to understand the effects of others on our own thinking. We feel strongly to have accurate views (Baron, Kerr, & Miller, 1992) and therefore we group together to gain comparative information in an attempt to protect ourselves from inappropriate decisions and judgments (Baron, Kerr, & Miller, 1992).Hitlers agenda incorporated Social Darwinism in his "Final Solution" to eradicate the Jewish race and he won this support through propaganda. Festinger argued that groups prefer to be in agreement. When disagreements arise various attempts are made to resolve matters. He observed that group members will first try to persuade each other, but when this proves futile then rejection of group deviates will result. Many German citizens were caught hiding Jews and were shot on the spot - evidently the propaganda didnt convince everyone in Germany. Jews were believed to be the root of Germanys problems, dehumanization made Jews non-human and became justification to exterminate...
