(Clearwisdom.net) In February 1992, two years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, former East German border guard Ingo Heinrich was tried for killing a young man named Chris Gueffroy as he attempted to flee to freedom in West Berlin. The killing took place before the Berlin Wall fell, but the trial didn't occur until afterwards.

The defense attorney said that Mr. Heinrich was merely obeying the “shoot to kill” order, therefore he was innocent. However, such defense didn't succeed with the judge. Ingo Heinrich was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for manslaughter, without bail.

How Social Psychology Explains Obedience

When a demand is made in the form of an order, people will feel the pressure to obey. The order may come from protocols in society or an authoritative figure. Obedience is defined as a phenomenon of an individual changing his or her opinions and behaviors in order to meet an external demand. Everyone has such obedience experiences, such as obeying parents, teachers, work schedules, traffic rules, and so on.

Scholars are concerned with the issue of when an order is against morality or even brutal beyond humanity, should you obey or not?

Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale University, conducted an innovative and controversial experiment to investigate the issue.

Forty men of different age and profession were told that they would participate in an experiment studying the impact of punishment on learning. They drew slips of paper to determine whether they would be students or teachers. Two people were on one team. The “teacher” would ask questions, and the “student” would answer them. If the answer was wrong, the “teacher” was required to press a button to give the “student” an electric shock as punishment.

The “teachers” sat in front of a big control panel with 30 buttons. Each button corresponded to different voltages, from 15 to 450 volts. The “students” sat in another room. They were tied up to their chairs with shock plates on their arms. “Students” and “teachers” could communicate with each other, but they couldn't see each other.

During the experiment, “teachers” administered multiple shocks to “students,” with the voltage increasing in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. When the shocking started, “students” moaned in pain. As the voltage increased, “students” screamed, cursed, and begged. Then they hit the tables, kicked the walls, and finally stopped any movements as if they fainted. During the experiments, all “teachers” were urged to keep shocking the “students” and were told that all responsibilities and liabilities lie with the experimenter, not the “teachers.”

If at any time the “teacher” indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

Please continue.

The experiment requires that you continue.

It is absolutely essential that you continue.

You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the “teacher” still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the “teacher” had given the maximum 450-volt shocks three times in succession.

Sixty five percent of the “teachers” followed the orders of the experimenter. Although they heard the screams and pleads from the “students,” they still increased the voltage to the maximum 450 volts.

In fact, the “students” were not shocked at all. They were “in on it” and were working with the experimenter to study the behavior of the so-called “teachers.” All the sounds of moans, cries, screams, hitting and kicking, were pre-recorded sound effects. The “teachers” knew nothing about this and truly believed that the “students” were being shocked.

The “teachers” were quite stirred mentally and felt guilty for a long time for subjecting strangers to electric shocks. Although professor Milgram offered many explanations of his experiment, there were a lot of criticisms.

This tells us that after committing wrongdoings, whether out of obedience or one's own initiative, one has to meet the retribution sooner or later. This applies to even “virtual” experiments.

Looking at Real Life Cases

After the Second World War, the Nuremberg Trials determined that immoral actions would not be pardoned simply because they followed orders from higher above.

The nurses in Nazi hospitals claimed that they simply carried out orders, however, they were still sentenced to hang.

During the over 10 years of persecution of Falun Gong in China, many policemen knew that the cruelties they perpetrated on Falun Gong practitioners was wrong, but they “were following orders.” They conducted their evil deeds against their conscience. However, justice cannot be escaped simply because they “were following orders.” They will all meet their due sooner or later, without exception.

In the Heinrich Case, Judge Theodor Seidel said, “Not everything that is legal is right.” “At the end of the 20th Century . . . , no one has the right to ignore his conscience when it comes to killing people on behalf of the power structure,`` Seidel said.(1)

When there is a conflict between the law and conscience, your conscience should be the higher principle. A policeman is first a person, then a policeman. Carrying the “shoot to kill” order but missing the victim with the gun shot is a kind and righteous act.

Th US military demands unconditional obedience of its soldiers. However, lessons in morality are offered at the West Point military academy to teach cadets moral instincts to use in combat. (2)

The blind obedience of Ingo Heinrich led him to jail. The blind obedience of Liu Chuanxin, the Public Security Bureau Chief, led him to suicide. The blind obedience of the Nazi nurses led them to hang.

Historical cases prove that those who blindly obey orders against their conscience will be held accountable some day. Obeying the CCP's orders of persecution of Falun Gong is a felony. We hope that they can adhere to higher morality when given immoral and illegal orders for their own better future.

  1. As reported by Chicago Tribune on January 21, 1992: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-01-21/news/9201060750_1_chris-gueffroy-judge-theodor-seidel-ingo-heinrich

  2. “Lessons in Morality at West Point” by BBC news on September 18, 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9006784.stm

Category: Perspective