(Browning 168-169) He points to Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiments where some subjects proved so amenable to authority that they were willing to repeatedly shock and possibly kill other people if an authoritative figure ordered them to do so, while refusing if a less authoritative figure gave the same orders. (Browning, 167) Browning suggests that there is an element of calculation and free will here that goes against the notion

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

Himmler himself came up with an explanation for those who could not obey orders, in spite of their unconditioned obedience, so that their comrades and the rest of the population get a message of a condition in their mental health, rather than a disobedience dictated by their human nature. Almost a century and a half after the official abolition of slavery of the U.S., a comparison comes to mind. The

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

In the horrifying details regarding a mass execution operation conducted by a series of German platoons, one man recalls that "it was in no way the case that those who did not want to or could not carry out the shooting of human beings with their own hands could not keep themselves out of the task."(Browning, 65). Browning indicates that many Germans felt inclined by responsibility to follow the

Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men What was the situation of the Police Battalion 101 that prompted their actions? "How did a battalion of middle-aged reserve policemen find themselves facing the task of shooting some 1,500 Jews" in a Polish village (Browning 3). This is the central question of Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men. The policemen were not fit for military duty, but they were subjected to the same political and military propaganda as the