Deaths-Head Revisited story
A former SS Captain visits the now-deserted concentration camp he commanded where he is tried for his crimes by the ghosts of his prisoners. Directed by: Don Medford. Story by: Rod Serling.
11 total · 2 choice · 3 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| The Holocaust | choice | We saw a former Nazi revisit the Dachau concentration camp, where he encountered ghosts of his many victims. |
| war crime | choice | Becker mentioned the Nuremberg trials, thus making it clear in what light the rest of the encounter should be viewed; Lutze was tried for crimes against humanity, in the Twilight Zone. |
| punishment in the afterlife | major | Lutze was made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on the inmates in the Twilight Zone. |
| sadism | major | Captain Lutze recalled his many cruel concentration time actions and interactions with glee. Becker called him a sadist. |
| the desire for vengeance | major | The ghosts of the concentration camp inmates quite understandably wanted vengeance, and the so-called trial was not conducted by an uninterested party meaning it can hardly be called lawful justice (cf. the desire for justice) though there is a case for the theme. |
| duty to disobey illegal orders | minor | Captain Lutze insisted that he was only following orders when he tortured and ordered the executions of concentration prisoners. |
| patriotism | minor | Lutze invoked patriotism to explain why he had returned to the Fatherland. |
| poetic justice | minor | The concentration camp commandant Lutze was made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on his former inmates. It is a case of poetic justice since the punishment was mediated by his former prisoner Becker. |
| unethical human experimentation | minor | Lutze was charged with having authorized the use of concentration camp inmates in medical experiments. |
| World War II | minor | Lutze falsely claimed that he had served in Russian front in a Panzer devision during the war. |