Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Paperback – April 24, 1998

I’d dare say that more is here to be learned for the average reader than any other book than I can figure out just now. I mean about human nature, the soul and the mind, the abstract aspects of human life, in contrast to its material aspects that are dealt appropriately enough with science and its body of knowledge. About the soul -which admittedly constitutes half of what we can ascertain as existing out there-, this is the richest source of available evidence open to scrutiny and debate.Yes, because while moral issues have been discussed and vivisected time and again for centuries, we lack as yet a sound, convincing conceptual framework to model it, to explore, to provide its foundations. So, considering that ethics is today essentially still an open problem, the most useful sources are those that confront us with the most radical, paradoxical, unsurmountable problems. And the problem of evil, as exemplified in the Holocaust is one of them, if not ‘the one’.In summary, the book provides a meticulously documented account of the works and crimes of a group of German reserve police officers, reccruited around the start of WWII in the area of Hamburg. They were essentially normal middle-to-low class workers who nobody would expect they could turn into cold-blooded mass murderers. The action is centered in 1941-1943 in the Lublin district of occupied Poland and their Bataillon was assigned to ‘routine’ tasks in the context of the Final Solution: The extermination of all jewish human beings in the newly occupied territories.Why did the Holocaust occur ? Can it happen again ? Under what conditions can it or can not ? What kind of responsibility are the perpetrators subject to ? Are we not -at least in part- responsible for them ? What responsibility, if any, confronts us as members of the society in which it happened?Until these questions are not adequately solved, we as human beings cannot even call ourselves masters of the world, and should continue to behave as we always did: as incidental bystanders, perplexed flesh and bones at the mercy of no-one knows what, or who, or where.The author discusses several theories and puts forward a tentative explanation in a long (35 pages) articulate and informative Afterword. The discussion is interesting, but IMHO still falls short of explicative power. Of course, he is an historian, and the strong point of the book is in his accurate, meticulous, balanced and heart-breaking account of the facts in this miniature laboratory of (in)human barbaric, devilish behavior. (If the devil exists, this is it). The fact that the perpetrators were modern ‘normal’ human beings, like you and me, is the crucial asset, which forces you to rule out easily most customary explanations.By the way, the author does not take advantage of this fact, and he argues that the most significant determinant of the criminal conduct was a combination ‘authority’ and ‘peer’ conformity, or the inability resist to both ! Of course this, being true factors, cannot provide the desired explicatory key mechanisms, since this is what we all do all the time to a large extent: accept authority and conform with the group. It would be tantamount to accepting that the Holocaust can happen again any time, anywhere. This might be true, but it remains unproven and, in the meanwhile, should be held back as a terrible, discouraging conclusion.Let me set it straight (and this is just my opinion): Most authors set out from the assumption that they could (never!) behave in such a way, and they then try to find out what was wrong with the people that committed the horrendous crimes. The root is in their brains, in their psychological constitution, as it were. Others, starting from the same assumption try to locate the seed of the evil in the social-economic environment to which these people were exposed at some previous time in their life, and they propose their theories. (BTW most of them them quite amusing and adequately dealt with in the book). The result are several frivolous discordant proposals, that invariably reflect the cultural/ideological standpoint but fall short of consistency with the data. How can it be that 80% of (willing executioner-) normal guys in a normal middle class society, with no background trauma nor obvious shortcomings could perform the actions ? Lets accept it: we do not know. But we need to. And the reason why we need to is simple: Unless we have a better grasp of what happened to these guys, the odds are that you, and me, and anybody else (Germans and Non-Germans!), somewhere, sometime, could be the perpetrators of these or even worse crimes.

Very very very hard to comprehend the atrocities they committed on a daily baseous

This well-researched, in-depth account of one reserve police battalion deployed in Poland in the early 1940s is a chilling, must-read account for anyone who's ever wondered how the Holocaust happened and whether it could happen again, and especially for those who just know that they would never do any such thing.The book is very well organized. Following a brief preface which lays out the author's intent and the pros and cons of the methodology, the book opens with a brief, tantalizing, nauseating account of the opening minutes of the massacre at Josefow. This chapter ends with Major Trapp's astounding offer to allow anyone not feeling up to the task of eliminating Jews to step out. Contrary to popular belief, the perpetrators of the Holocaust were not merely following unavoidable orders. There was an element of choice involved. Why then did so many policemen make the choice to join it, while so few chose not to?The next few chapters help to set the stage for the events and actions of the Order Police. Browning discusses the demographic make-up of the Order Police, especially the fact that many were older reservists and primarily civilians, while only a small number of the younger men were career policemen.Browning describes the initial use of the Order Police in the "Final Solution" in Russia and their role in the deportations of Jews. While these sections are not directly about Battalion 101, they do give a picture of the kinds of activities of the Order Police prior to the mass executions later in Poland. What is particularly noteworthy about this section is Brown's chilling ability to expand on rather bland reports by examining what isn't mentioned, or mentioned only in passing. For instance, the reports focus on limited rations for the troops and how that affected morale, but little is mentioned of the nearly complete absence of food for the thousands of Jews. In another part the death of nearly 2,000 Jews on a transport train is mentioned only by oblique reference. Already, elements of distancing and dehumanizing can be seen, which pave the way toward mass extinction.Browning next turns his attention to Battalion 101 specifically, tracing their descent into murder and mayhem from the July 1942 massacre at Josefow to the November 1943 "Harvest Festival" massacre - the largest killing operation against Jews in the war. He details the different types of missions the battalion was used for, especially "deportation" operations which involved clearing ghettos, herding Jews onto trains, and escorting trains to extermination camps. Although these operations were not "massacres" per se, and although the policemen didn't have direct experience of the gassing at the camps, they did involve plenty of violence, including the shooting of old and sick Jews and those who resisted. Plus, the police must have known what happened at the camps, since they never escorted Jews from the camps to any other destination. Also described are the "Jew hunts" in between clearing the ghettos, when smaller bands of police would, often on intelligence from local Poles, root out and exterminate small groups of Jews and partisans hiding in the woods.In each of these operations, Browning explores how different men volunteered for, reluctantly accepted, or distanced themselves from serving. Some men, for instance, stayed away from their commanding officer when selections were being made for operations. Others, albeit few, actively resisted or refused to serve. Most, however, either volunteered to serve or served willingly when selected. Once selected, some approached their task with brutal enthusiasm, some shot only when superior officers were around, and others sought different assignments or drifted away once the shooting began. The fact that there were always enough volunteers and willing shooters meant that there were few repercussions for those who didn't participate or those who stopped participating, except for being labeled "weak" by their fellow men.Following a brief chapter on the outcomes for many of the men of the battalion after the war and a chapter exploring the alliances and divisions between and among the Germans, the Poles and the Jews, the final chapter gets down to the meat and potatoes: why did most of these "Ordinary Men" participate in the mass shootings of the Jews? Browning explores issues of selection, racism, conformity, camaraderie, authority and de-humanization. He rejects the idea that Battalion 101 was in any way specially selected for the task of implementing the "Final Solution". Just the opposite in fact - based on their demographics, it might be expected that they would be the least likely to kill innocent Jews. Browning also rejects each of the other factors as a total explanation, but some combination thereof seems key. Embedded, societal disdain and contempt for the Jews primed the men to view them as less human, certainly less so than the "superior" Germans. Faced with orders to exterminate the Jews, obeying authority, conforming with the group, and supporting one's fellow troops seemed the better choice than appearing "weak" or being too sympathetic to the Jews.One factor that Browning doesn't really consider, however, is the effect of the experience of killing itself. He describes how the men were initially shocked at Josefow and went into action without the time (or desire) to consider the implications of their actions. Many were sickened and traumatized and had to stop shooting. But once they had shot, however, it seems their fate might have been sealed. They would have had to display extreme moral awareness and moral courage at that point to recognize the wrongness of their actions and to reverse course. Psychologically speaking, once a person has committed a violent act, it's far easier to rationalize that act than to repent of it. But it's hard to justify the murder of innocent people, so the only way is to retroactively buy into the prevailing prejudices about such people in order to override the idea of their innocence. Regardless of one's prior feelings about the Jews, once one has killed Jews, the only rationalization possible is to accept that Jews are indeed "filthy vermin" in need of extermination. Otherwise, one has committed a morally heinous crime that would be, literally, unconscionable.This updated edition of the book concludes with an extensive Afterword in which Browning responds to Daniel Jonah Goldberg's criticisms. Goldberg reviewed the same documents as Browning, yet came to a different conclusion, which he presented in "Hitler's Willing Executioners": that the Germans' historical anti-Semitism primed the pump in a way that made them quite willing, if not eager, to kill the Jews. No pressure or coercion was necessary; orders merely served as a convenient pretext to do what they wanted to do anyway. I haven't read Goldberg's work, but I found the discussion quite interesting. From what I read, I'd say Browning has the better argument, but not having read any rebuttal from Goldberg, I won't award either the final point.I recommend this book for every thinking adult (and even high school students). Certainly this book is fascinating for history buffs and those interested in World War II and the Holocaust. But it goes beyond the Holocaust. If the perpetrators of the Holocaust were just a large collection of fringe madmen, then we can rest easy now that the Holocaust is over. But Browning seems to be saying that we all have a bit of potential fringe madman in us, and the right combination of authority, conformity and stoked-up prejudices could bring out the worst in even the best of us. I think history and current events suggest Browning might be right. 4.5 stars.

Well written heartbreaking eye opening

Found several interesting things in this book. The only negative thing is the writing style which is poor and makes it difficult to read at times. Meaning: not an engaging writing style.

well written and easy to understand. it's about how men, who didn't grow up in the NS regime and who had their morals from times before the NS became men who enjoyed killing jews from men who didn't enjoy killing jews.

A chilling account of how the ordinary policemen of Police Battalion 101 became obedient killers in the Nazi drive to exterminate all European Jews. The author at first recounts the mass-shootings and deportations to Treblinka before going on to investigate the psycholgy of the policemen and how they came to be for the most part willing participants in the massacres that took place in Poland during WWII.

Un libro necesario para nuestros tiempos.A veces veo comentarios en redes sociales de gente que etiqueta a otros como monstruos, por algo malo que han hecho, sin entender la multitud de factores que subyacen a un acto malvado. Somos muy rápidos para condenar y para pensar que los otros son los victimarios y nosotros las víctimas. Y creo que este libro ilustra que muchos podemos terminar siendo, con bastante facilidad, los monstruos que tanto decimos repudiar.