What role does dehumanization play in 20th century mass violence? – When there is any form of mass violence, perpetrators must dissociate human beings from the people they are killing. Dehumanizing someone doesn't mean making them seem like an inferior being, an animal, or a savage in your eyes. This makes us lose our sense of empathy for that person and allows us to be able to slaughter them like cattle, because that's what they are, cattle. There are many places around the world that show how dehumanization is necessary for genocide to occur. The most prominent example of dehumanization by genocide occurs in World War II Germany, during the Holocaust. Around this time, Hitler began to launch anti-Semitic propaganda against Jews. His influence on people was able to drive people to hatred by calling them thieves and criminals. The fact that a person can remain somehow sane while guarding a concentration camp, without thinking that the people there are not real people, is impossible. By dehumanizing them, they were able to endure the horror