According to Wolfgang Sofsky in The Order of Terror, the removal of any possibility of action on the part of the prisoners was one of the major factors in the process of dehumanization. With no possibility of action, one's future, one's sense of identity, one's social interaction -- all disappear. All the strategies of detainment [concentration] have this as a basic principle that is inflicted on all prisoners.
The irony is that in the war crimes trials that followed, the most consistent line of defense presented by the camp guards and officers, the major rationale for such inhumane actions, was -- they too had no choice in terms of personal action. "They had been educated in absolute obedience, hierarchy, nationalism; imbued with slogans, intoxicated with ceremonies and demonstrations. Their decisions were not theirs because the regime in which they grew up did not permit autonomous decisions; their ability to decide had been amputated." [Levi, The Drowned and the Saved]
