Destructive Obedience and Prejudice Blind obedience to authority combined with ethnic prejudice in Germany during World War II led to the slaughter of millions of Jews in concentration camps. When questioned after the war, Nazi officials and soldiers claimed that they were “just following orders.” In the almost 70 years since the end of World War II, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and politically inspired mass killings have occurred in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, and the Sudanese Darfur. As of 2015, in the Central African Republic, up to 6,000 people have been killed and more than 500,000 people were currently displaced from their homes (Nichols, 2015; UNHCR, 2015).
AP Photo/Jerome Delay