Introduction

In the decades that followed World War Two and the unspeakable horrors of The Holocaust, much study has been conducted to both learn the details of all the interlocking forces that enabled these atrocities. Scholars and historians today have much data about how the Germans engaged in and perpetuated The Holocaust. There is a robust comprehension about the motivating factors of how the Holocaust was carried out. There isn’t a tremendous amount of insight regarding the feelings and thoughts of those who perpetuated such horrific evils. Chris Browning’s book, Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, sheds light onto one of the darker corners of The Holocaust: how the ordinary people, the middle-class Germans whose names have been forgotten by history, were able to gather up millions of Jews and systematically kill them—with bullets, stuffing them in cattle cars destined for gas chambers. Browning’s book helps makes sense of the senseless. Browning’s entire book helps to shed light on the psychological transformation that had to occur in many German men in order to turn them into ruthless killers. This book helps the reader understand how such ordinary men could be capable of such tremendous evil, while making nuanced suggestions about the human capacity for evil. 

Most people have heard the expression, “you can get used to anything.” While this might not be an absolute in all cases and for all people, repetition and indoctrination definitely had an impact on Reserve Police Battalion 101 in getting them used to the killing process. Once the extermination camps were developed, the bulk of the murders were to occur there, as a means of streamlining the final solution. “When the time came to kill came again the policemen did not ‘go crazy.’ Instead, the became increasingly efficient and calloused executioners” (Browning, 1992, 77). Calloused and efficient is the best type of executioner to have. When Browning compares the first killing (the one at Jozefow) that these men had to carry out with the second killing  (the one at Lomazy), there was remarkably less drama with the men of this regiment in carrying out these gruesome orders. The murders at Lomazy were more depersonalized, in order to exert a smaller psychological toll on the men. They also had not been given a choice to “step out” if they didn’t feel up to it. “Everyone...

Therefore, those who shot did not have to live with the clear awareness that what they had done had been avoidable” (Browning, 1992, 86).  
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Another psychological tool that was used by the ordinary men of the Police Reserve Battalion 101 was transfer of guilt and blame. These men often transferred blame to Polish citizens, something that no doubt allowed them to function psychologically and relieved them of the burden of their own personal guilt. As Browning suggests, it is fair to assume that there was no small amount of projection that went on when these officers testified about Polish anti-Semitism. “Often unwilling to make accusatory statements about comrades or to be truthful about themselves, these men have found considerable psychological relief in sharing blame with the Poles. Polish misdeeds could be spoken about frankly while discussion about Germans was guarded. Indeed the greater the share of Polish guilt, the less remained on the German side” (Browning, 1992, 182). Hence, one can assume that if guilt and blame were being projected at Polish citizens during the testimonies of these men after the war, they were certainly projecting their own sense of blame onto the Polish people during world war two. Browning notices that during these testimonies, many of the men of Police Reserve Battalion 101 used the word “betrayed” when describing what the Poles did to the Jews—a word that has an intense moral judgment riddled at its core. For example Gustav Michelson discusses how he found it very disturbing that Polish population betrayed the Jewish population who had hidden themselves very well and who would not have been found out if they had not been betrayed by the Polish civilians (Browning, 1992). This is a clear deflection of guilt and demonstrates the mentality of the men in this regiment: they were just following orders. It was the “cruelty” of the Polish people who chose to commit these acts of treachery to the Jews. 

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Conclusion

In summary, Christopher R. Browning’s book Ordinary Men really does illuminate one of the darkest chapters of human existence that we have ever known. More importantly, Browning is able to clarify how ordinary people could engage in the most monstrous acts of repeated evil from a perspective that shows how their minds were being influenced. Browning illustrates the influence of habituation onto the minds of these men, along with other psychological tricks, like projection, that helped them to reconcile the horrors of their own behavior. Ultimately, this book, like a violin in a void, assists the modern reader in comprehending the…