Raised Lutheran, zur Linde loses his faith in Christianity after reading the writings of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler.
Declaring how Raskolnikov's switch to robbery and murder was more difficult than the conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte, zur Linde relates how, on February 7, 1941, he was appointed subdirector of Tarnowitz concentration camp.
He offers no justification and rejoices in the fact that "violence and faith in the sword" shall govern the future rather than "servile Christian acts of timidity."
Zur Linde's reflections articulate a typical trait of fascism, the notion of sacrificial violence and rejection of the sentiment of empathy for his victim,[2][3] his dehumanization and blaming.
In an interview with Richard Burgin, Borges recalled how his interactions with Argentina's Nazi sympathisers led him to write the short story.
Then I thought, well now Germany has lost, now America has saved us from this nightmare, but since nobody can doubt on which side I stood, I'll see what can be done from a literary point of view in favor of the Nazis.
Thus, all inadvertence is deliberate, every casual encounter is an engagement made beforehand, every humiliation is an act of penitence, every failure a mysterious victory, every death a suicide.
There is no more cunning consolation than the thought that we have chosen our own misfortunes; [...] in a crude dungeon, where insidious compassion tempts us with ancient acts of tenderness.