Identify About Books Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Title | : | Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland |
Author | : | Christopher R. Browning |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 271 pages |
Published | : | April 6th 1993 by Harper Perennial (first published 1992) |
Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. World War II. Holocaust. War. Psychology |
Christopher R. Browning
Paperback | Pages: 271 pages Rating: 4.09 | 10599 Users | 668 Reviews
Ilustration Toward Books Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work, with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.Define Books Concering Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Original Title: | Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland |
ISBN: | 0060995068 (ISBN13: 9780060995065) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust (1994) |
Rating About Books Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Ratings: 4.09 From 10599 Users | 668 ReviewsWrite-Up About Books Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Browning reviewed hundreds of interviews conducted with former members of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the 1960s. He used these to explain how "ordinary men" could commit the crimes of the holocaust and what made those men different from us. The disheartening answer is nothing made them different, they're just like us. About 20% of the members took no or little part in the killing, about 20% were glad to take part, and the remaining 60% just went along. A very interesting and informativeAnd another in our continuing series of depressing books: Christopher Browning examines the motivation of a 500 man police battalion assigned to the rear lines of Germany's Eastern Front. This small group of men was personally responsible for the massacre of over 38,000 Jews and the deportation of some 45,000 more to Treblinka. These were not racial fanatics nor committed Nazis. Their motives were quite ordinary: careerism and peer pressure. Browning's book is based on interviews with the
How did the Holocaust happen? Not the antisemitic ravings of Hitler, or the careerist banality of Eichmann, but the physical labor of liquidating the Jews of Poland. Someone had to round up the Jews in ghettos, herd them onto trains to the death camps, shoot the ones who couldn't walk or evaded. Ordinary Men asks what happens to the people who perpetuate a genocide.The 'someone' in Ordinary Men were the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, about 500 middle-aged, working-class men from Hamburg.
There's a way in which reading this book, for me, forms a ring composition with Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, because Goldhagen spends a great deal of time and energy passionately arguing with Browning.Now that I've read Ordinary Men, I can see why.But first I want to talk about what this book does well, because there are things it does very well indeed.Ordinary Men is about a reserve battalion of the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei)
I had to read this for a class otherwise I probably wouldn't have picked it up. Holocaust lit is depressing enough and this had its share of horrific tales but it didn't seem to be more than an elongated account on one battalion. It was missing more. Browning starts off with this claim that he is going to analyze and explain why 'ordinary men' become killers and I feel he really failed to do that. Towards the end, he explains several factors that helped many of the men get to that point (wanting
(... to be updated)The experience of reading this book makes me want to give its 3 stars, but thinking about the effort of the author and all the truth that this book has brought to light as well as the strong case that it made, I decide to give it a 4 (although not sure I want to read it again).The psychological situation of the few good men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 can be well summarize in this excerpt: Many, nonetheless, joined in the mass killing and masked their feelings to avoid
A disturbing but essential read for any student of the human condition.
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