Essay on Ordinary Men

Chapter 2 sums up the war in a different fashion, showing the contrast between the uselessness of past knowledge and the “raw and emotional skills necessary” in the trenches (20). The duties imposed on the camp by Corporal Himmelstoss symbolize the hours of work and duties done before enlistment that mean nothing during the war. Being “put through every conceivable refinement of parade ground soldiering” shows how schoolbook tasks were diligently performed only for fear of how society would perceive the boys if they were to do otherwise (26). Himmelstoss himself is the embodiment of previous responsibilities that only make the men “howl with rage” at present (26). The death of Kemmerich goes hand in hand with the death of innocence, Kemmerich’s shiny boots being the small glimpse of hope that keeps the men going. Baumer receives saveloy, hot tea, and rum from Muller for salvaging the boots. In return for giving Muller a sense of hope, Baumer receives a more needed sense of comfort and satisfaction. His hunger, one “greater than comes from the belly alone” (33), is thus satisfied. Chapter 7 directly reinforces this transition from an old life into a new one. Baumer “feels an attraction” to the

The main argument in “Ordinary Men” is a flexible argument that can be inserted into the gaps of past hypotheses while holding merit. Part of Browning’s effective appeal is his concession to other offered historian’s ideas on the subject while establishing why his ideas with an emphasis on psychology, provide a superior answer for the question at hand. Seeing that there are two majority view points in relation to this discussion with the intentionalists claiming that this was a desired outcome from the inception of war juxtaposed to the functionalists, who declare that “normal” men would subjugate the Jews as the war developed, the refutation to the intentionalist point of view is well addressed by Browning, he points out the flaws in arguments the directly root their idea of the participation of “normal” men to merely being the product of sheer Nazi indoctrination. I agree with the idea that Nazi indoctrination would qualify for an explanation to why higher ranking Nazi SS officials would be able to kill Polish Jewry without troubles considering their high involvement and connection to Nazism, but that hypothesis does not offer enough intellectual reach to explain why men of which belonged to Major Wilhelm Trapp’s battalion, who were described as “mostly middle aged reservists” (Browning) would be converted into mindless machines without the freedom

162). Two of the factors that helped in the distancing, as Browning states, was War and negative racial stereotyping. In the speech provided by Major Wilhelm Trapp prior in the morning of the Jozefow Massacre, he stated that the Jews were taking part of bombings Germany, killing women and children (Browning pg.2). This evoked the idea of war and created a “us” and “them” complex, justifying their actions by seeing the Jews as the enemy (Browning pg. 73). Despite that during the interrogation of the 125 men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101, they were reluctant to discuss their “anti-Semitism” that may have been due to the legal aspect,  negative racial stereotyping could be found in many instances throughout the book (Browning, pg. 150). One could depict their negative racial stereotyping in their language. Browning gives an example where he describes during the interrogations some of the men were asked how they were able to depict the Jews from the Poles in the countryside and some of the men responded by stating that they were “dirty, unkempt, and less clean” (Browning, pg.

When putting together historical accounts, historians can run into a lot of problems trying to discover the truth about an event. These problems stem from the fact that history was not often recorded from multiple or impartial sources, so as a result, historians often have to read in between the lines to decipher the facts about a historical event. One particular problem that historians will run into is the issue of gendering. Gendering is when an event is examined with an understanding of how gender can influence all aspects of a society, and in turn, historical events (Abina, p. 163-64). This problem was especially relevant to Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke as they assembled the graphic history of Abina Mansah in Abina and the Important Men. The story revolves around a young woman in the Gold Coast in 1876 bringing a man who had enslaved her to court. In this story, gender is the underlying driving force for many of the events that take place, and can be seen even in parts of the story that were created by the authors. Gendered issues can sometimes be subtle, as they are often unspoken aspects of society, reinforced by cultural norms and behaviors. As a result, gendering was the most important problem faced when constructing this narrative, because gender relations add a series of nuances to social interactions that are easy to overlook despite the deep impacts they can create.

If one were to take anything from Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men it is that even the most ordinary, normal men have the capacity to kill. The 101st Reserve Police Battalion executed at least 6,500 Jews at the Polish cities and villages of Jozefow, Lomazy, Serokomla, Lukow, Konskowola, Parczew, Radzyn, Kock, and Miedzyrzec and participated in the deportation of at least 42,000 Jews to the gas chambers in Treblinka (Browning, chapter 14, page 121). There were most likely even more killings that were never documented and much less remembered by the members of the 101st. These men had their first taste of death at Jozefow where they massacred 1,500 Polish Jews (Browning, chapter 8, page 74). It was a brutal and harrowing event where men,

It is now that Browning goes in-depth on the massacre that occurred in Jozefow. Of the perpetrators, Browning mentions that many were middle-aged policemen who were given a choice of whether or not they wanted to take part in killing the Jewish population in this area. The major who offered a reprieve from being involved in the slaughter was Major Trapp, of the 500 men who would be present, only a mere dozen would accept his offer. Afterwards, the slaughter began with one soldier stating “I shot the child that belonged to her, because I reasoned with myself that after all without its mother the child could not live any longer; so to speak, soothing to my conscience to release children unable to live without their mothers. (Browning 73)”

The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were just ordinary men, from a variety of backgrounds, education, and age. It would appear that they were not selected by any force other than random chance. Their backgrounds and upbringing, however, did little to prepare these men for the horrors they were to witness and participate in.

Christopher R. Browning’s “Ordinary Men” chronicles the rise and fall of the Reserve Police Battalion 101. The battalion was one of several units that took part in the Final Solution to the Jewish Question while in Poland. The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, and other units were comprised of ordinary men, from ordinary backgrounds living under the Third Reich. Browning’s premise for the book is very unique, instead of focusing on number of victims, it examines the mindset of how ordinary men, became cold-hearted killers under Nazi Germany during World War II. Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men” presents a very strong case that the men who made up the Reserve Police Battalion 101 were indeed ordinary men from ordinary background, and

The main sources for this book consist of archival documents and court records of the Holocaust. The specific testimony, court records, investigation records, and prosecution documents of members of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 members are used as sources. In this book, Christopher Browning shows in minute detail the sequence of events and individual reactions that turn ordinary men into killers. His arguments make sense. He makes no unwarranted assumptions. The cause and effect statements made and arguments presented are logical and well developed. Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning accounts for the actions of the German Order Police (more specifically the actions of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland) and the role they played in the Second World War during the Jewish Holocaust. Police Battalion 101 was composed of veterans from World War One and men too old to be

But it was his lead they were following so if anyone could end this, it would be him. But just like the rest of the men, he was just following orders from men higher on the totem pole. We can see how distraught he is during the first massacre but how does the climate of the war change him? Even in the very same chapter, we see him change when he turns away from the Jews who tried to kiss his hands for saving them. But it's in chapter 11 we truly see how the climate of war has made him adapt. When faced with a killing quota when stationed in Talcyn, Trapp decides to kill the Jewish population instead of the Poles. Seemingly, this is because they're more expendable. But to me, it seems as if he's gotten used to killing Jews. Poles can still be looked at as people for him. He hasn't distanced himself from them like he has been forced to with Jews. The very obvious rules of the German side of this war is that Jews aren't necessary. So when faced with the decision to kill Poles or Jews, Trapp created his own rule that Jews are more expendable then Poles. The man who once weeped for the Jews "no longer had any inhibitions about shooting more then enough Jews to meet his quota" (Browning, chapter 11, pg. 102).

The Man Who Was Almost a Man, tells the story of a young seventeen year old teenager, named Dave Saunders, who finds himself struggling with the need to be taken seriously as an adult, while still being seen by his community, as merely a boy. Published in 1961 and written by Richard Wright, this short story focuses on the common struggle of young African American men in the South trying to find their identity outside of the box that the United States society put them in at the time. Dave felt that in order to prove that he was a man; in order to receive the respect he thought he deserved from Black and White Americans alike, he needed to purchase a gun. This, of course, proved to be of more harm than good, as Dave found himself incapable of using the gun correctly, and what resulted was the death of his employer’s mule. Dave then, after creating a nonsensical lie that does not convince anyone, decides to skip town in order to avoid the responsibility of taking up for his actions. When taking into consideration the story line and its relativity to the South during the 1920s, when the story is set, it’s clear to see that Dave Saunders’ story is more than what it seems to be on the surface. Dave Saunders’ story is a reflection of common coming-of-age struggles, and even more than that, the common African American struggle of trying to find power when everything surrounding you, and society as a whole, is telling you that you’re powerless; a struggle that is still very

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning is an insightful book that provides information as to how ordinary people may be susceptible to committing heinous, evil acts. Browning explains this through analyzing judicial interrogations, which occurred in the 1960’s, of about 125 men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Browning, pg. xviii). The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a unit of the German Order Police formed in Hamburg, Germany, under the control of the SS which was under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party (Browning, pg. xvi-xvii). They consisted of German police and sheriffs who were middle-aged men of working and lower middle class. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was formed as the

Equality between individuals is a primary step to prosperity under a democracy. However, does this moral continue to apply among differences and distinct characters of the total population? In the novel, Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, the protagonists suffers from the lack of acknowledgement guaranteed to African Americans in both the North and South regions of North America during the early 1900s. The Narrator expresses the poignant problems that blacks face as he travels to the North. An anti-hero is created on his voyage of being expelled from college, earning a job at Liberty Paints, and joining the organization group called Brotherhood. The Narrator begins to follow the definition others characters give to him while fighting for the

The play Everyman is a perfect representation of public literature from the Renaissance period. The anonymous author reveals through the morality play that 'everyman' should be prepared for judgment at any time because, "Suddenly, [Death] come[s]." (Scene 1, Line 81) This, as with all allegorical works of that period, was constructed under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church to strike fear in to the hearts of men and, in doing so, have power over them. The church succeeded by censoring all works and designing them to fit their purpose.

Preference and feeling are different when compares to one’s judgement because they are a more personal opinion. The example Regan gives in his article is that one person likes to drink bourbon; whereas, the other person does not like to drink bourbon. The claim here is that the preference of the second person does not affect the preference of the first person who likes to drink bourbon. By her saying she does not like to drink bourbon, she is just stating her personal preference and feeling for that drink. Judgement on the other hand is more complicated because you are now making a statement that is a point of view on a vast topic. The example given was abortions, john did not support abortions, whereas jane sees nothing wrong with them.