The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
Bio: Rudolf Mildner was an SS-Standartenführer who served as the chief of the Gestapo at Katowice and who was the head of the political department at Auschwitz, conducting "third degree" methods of interrogation from March 1941 until September 1943.