‘yesterday, i saw a rabbit!’: unlearnt lessons from the nomos of the holocaust for criminology, or why some principles from anarchism may trump sovereignty in combating genocide

Traditional criminology looks to sovereignty and works in defence of social order, thus obedience to the State is a norm, anarchism the enemy. But genocide, as in the Holocaust, presents a different terrain. This article looks at the respective acts and judgments of Otto Ohlendorf and Julius Schmahling within the Nazi nomos. Criminological theory should be alive, human and particular, but aware of its situation in the global and so the article joins with the Jewish Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector to put a dog (or two) in to join the sight of the rabbit that haunted Julius Schmahling and in so doing asks questions on the pedagogy of what is, and/or, should be, Criminology. If this appears historically focussed, the afterword returns us to the present, a time where terrorists claim to fight global wars in the name of purity and security and follow interpretative creeds not dissimilar to Ohlendorf, the final counter-sovereign image is that of the Black Madonna.