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Ordinary Men Christopher R. Browning was born in 1944. He received his A. B. from Oberlin College (1967) and his Ph.
D. from the University of Wisconsin- Madison (1975). He has been a member of the History Department at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, since 1974. His book, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office, was published in 1978. He has undertaken research on the Final Solution in German archives and court records with the support of fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. One of the most devastating and frightening time-periods of our history was during the Second World War, when between five and six million Jewish civilians were killed throughout Europe in a mass genocide.
A large portion of the Jews was killed by the Nazis under Hitlers regime. However, thousands more of them were also put to death by the German Reserve Police Battalion 101. The members of the reserve police were middle-aged men who were not forced to kill the many defenseless citizens who had died. They were given the option to step away, and refuse to engage in such brutal acts without being penalized. However, only a small fifteen to twenty percent of these men accepted the choice given to them, while a significant majority were soon going to be a large part of one of the most disturbing eras in history; the Holocaust. In Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning discusses Police Battalion 101 and the men involved within it.
He shows that these men were "ordinary, just regular people, not the scum of the earth. Browning writes about the feelings of these "ordinary" men during each killing operation they were involved in. Although some of the men in this particular battalion had little to no guilt about killing, others refused to participate in these mass killings altogether. Some members of the battalion also used alcohol to escape or block out the horrors of each event. In Ordinary Men, Browning argues that cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force others to tolerate more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty, are to some extent contributing factors to the behavior of the men in Battalion 101. However, he makes the point that these contributing factors are not to be used as excuses to let them "off the hook, " but rather help understand better the positions and environment these men were living in.
At this time, one must wonder what drove these dockworkers, bankers, and businesspersons, ordinary men, to kill so many people. Browning goes into a deep analysis of the possible causes for these men to become hardened killers. He dismisses propaganda because many of the men were older, and had seen life before the Nazi regime. He also does not believe the men were specially chosen to be killers.
By age, geographical origin, and social background, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were least likely to be considered apt material out of which to mold future killers. (Browning, 164) So, what did actually drive them to kill? He attributed much of it to out of site, out of mind. Not only was the killing done by others, but it was done out of sight of the men who cleared the ghettos and forced the Jews onto the death trains. (Browning, 163) There have been a number of tests performed by psychologists that studied the effects of pressure from authority figures on human behavior. By examining one of the most famous, Milgrams electric shock test, it is hard not to draw some parallels.
Milgram noticed that if people did not have direct contact with the people they were inflicting pain on, two-thirds of the subjects inflicted what was considered extreme pain. If they had visual and voice feedback, only forty percent obeyed orders. The number fell to thirty percent if they were in direct contact with the person they were shocking. Browning also points out that the social pressures of conformity were quite apparent.
Within virtually every social collective, the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets the moral norms. If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot? (Browning, 189) In closing, these men, who appeared to be quite ordinary, became extraordinary in their brutality and killing, no matter what the reason. Decidedly, their contribution to the genocide was quite significant. It is a shame that many received little or no punishment for the slaughter they participated in.
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Research essay sample on Reserve Police Battalion Police Battalion 101
