This is a three page book review, on the book Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning. The book is about the 101 battalion of Germans who participated directly in the Final Solution. They were ordinary working class German men who became brutal mass murderers, many of whom killed babies. The book uses primary source material to show how easy genocide happens and how individuals are culpable.
Ordinary Men
Christopher R. Browning is a history professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. His work on holocaust historiography has allowed Browning to contribute to the world's most important compendium of holocaust history at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The sources used to write Ordinary Men were primary sources only: documentary evidence mainly emerging in the legal trials that ensued. Therefore, the author is well qualified to address the matter of the Reserve Police Battalion 101. Browning's experience and background would not have made Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland easy to write, though. The material is summarily grim, troubling, and difficult to digest. However, the holocaust is a significant part of modern history that must be continually remembered in order to never forget.
Ordinary Men is about a group of working class middle-aged German men from Hamburg who are selected to participate in the Nazi Final Solution in Poland. Their initial appointment was rather vague, allowing the men to gradually adjust to the impact of their orders and become desensitized to the fact that they would become mass murderers. Browning traces the evolution of the men's consciences as they went from ordinary men with ordinary lives as truck drivers, teachers, and businessmen to brutal baby killers. The most disturbing feature of Ordinary Men is the fact that the transformation from family man to killer seemed relatively easy for many in the battalion. For the ones for whom killing did not come as easy, it was nevertheless simple to justify participation in the regime by hiding behind the facade of a desk or managerial position. This is especially true of one of the men Browning features the most in Ordinary Men: Major Wilhelm Trapp.
Browning's thesis is multifold. For one, the author wants to show how easy it is for ordinary individuals to become murderous monsters. A sociological and psychological dynamic takes place, related to cultural norms and values including conformity and obedience. Secondly, the author wants to fill the gap in Holocaust research by revealing the mindsets of the men who participate in genocide. The suggestion is that genocide is preventable when people and institutions refuse to participate in any action resulting in the harm of other human beings, no matter who is giving the orders. Finally, the author shows that the Nazi Final Solution was a product of organizational culture, leadership, and management. Individual members of the battalion and other pawns like them deserve full responsibility for their atrocities, but their atrocities must also be understood as being part of a systemic problem stemming from the fact that anti-Semitism was normative in Europe. Killing was considered only mildly distasteful to ordinary men like those in the battalion. Furthermore, there were many others who did not participate as directly as they did: the civilians who watched while naked Jews were being dragged to their deaths before their very eyes. All bystanders are culpable.
To prove his theses, Browning draws primarily from primary source material. For example, Browning uses detailed police records of Jew killing in various cities. The author also uses letters and other personal correspondences like the letter issued by Colonel Montua of the Police Regiment Center (including Police Battalions 316 and 322), which was a direct order to shoot Jews "according to martial law," the message reads (p. 13). The most compelling primary source material, which forms the foundation of Ordinary Men and the reason why the book is unique, is the verbal testimony offered by the "ordinary men" in question. Trapp was executed in Poland, but subsequent testimony from other men in the battalion did survive and is used liberally throughout Browning's book to illustrate the mindsets of these perverse individuals. Their memories are often vivid, though sometimes not. Browning cites their testimony including mentioning how nearly 500 men had requested not to take part in the killings but that most of them did not excuse themselves as Trapp had allowed them to do (p. 71). Browning attributes the unwillingness of most of the ordinary men to excuse themselves on conformity. The immediate pressure of uniformed officials might have intimidated their already weak minds and souls. One of the most macabre bits of primary source testimony is on page 73: the testimony of an ordinary man from Bremerhaven: "I made the effort, and it was possible to me, to shoot only children. It so happened that the mothers led the children by the hand. My neighbor then shot the mother and I shot the child that belonged to her."
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