Reserve Police Battalion 101 Essay

Goldhagen’s view of the perpetrators of the Holocaust can be seen as super-intentionalist in the way he views the German population to have largely willingly colluded with the Nazi regime because they to held the same eliminationalist anti-Semitic views. To make this point, he uses what he sees as the willingness of ordinary, largely untrained and unindoctrinated Germans in the Reserve Police Battalions to carry out mass killings of Jews (Goldhagen: 1997:206). This means he portrays the perpetrators of the Jozefow massacre as “willing executioners” and goes at great length to show them to simply be “ordinary Germans” based on their political, socio-economic and geographical background (Goldhagen: 1997: 213). Central to Goldhagen’s argument that the Policemen massacred Jews willingly, is their reluctance to excuse themselves from the operation when given the opportunity. The main “opportunity” in which to do this, is the moment before the massacre, when Major Trapp (the officer in charge of the

Following orders is of the utmost importance in the military. Obedience is what enables the military to operate in an organized and effective manner which is clearly very important during challenging military situations. While an individual can question the notion of obedience in daily life, this luxury is often not available in the military where the grand goals and aims require smooth internal functioning and hierarchical coordination. Indeed, many of the standards that would be frowned upon outside the military are essential to the work's success within. For example, punishment is not deemed to be a positive occurrence in an average person’s life, whereas the military guide maintains that punishment

It is important to follow orders because of the fact that we are soldiers and that is what we do. Not only that but when soldiers decide not to follow orders regardless of what the order is provided it is not an unlawful order they are subject to punishment under Article 92 of the Universal Code of Military Justice, for Article 92 of the Universal Code of Military Justice states as follows: 892. ART. 92. FAILURE TO OBEY ORDER OR REGULATION Any person subject to this chapter who--(1) violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation; (2) having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by any member of the armed forces, which it is his duty to obey, fails to obey the order; or(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.This makes it very clear that any service member who fails to obey any lawful order shall be punished as a court-martial directs.

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

The Holocaust can be seen as one of the most devastating genocide that occurred in history and that is well known in many places worldwide. One may assume that those who played a part in the acts done by the Nazis in Germany may have been mentally disturbed and/or sick, evil people. However, the novel Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning provides another alternative to this statement. Browning provides the reader with the idea that anyone is capable of becoming a murderer, especially when the opportunity presents itself. In his book he attempts to prove this statement through multiple ideas and theories and also provides events which took place to analyze some of those ideas.

Correctional Officer’s have been around for a very long time and were designed to keep major offenders off the street after they have been arrested by the Police. The offenders are put in a holding cell at a Pre Trial Centre awaiting their court date.

For years, many have questioned the so called “evil” that seems to be inside of people. There have been multiple experiments set to find the answers to these questions. Although, the real question is, why do people act the way they do? Rob Reimen, director of the movie A Few Good Men is about Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer, who is assigned to defend two Marines accused of murdering Pfc. William Santiago. With the help of Col. Nathan Jessep and Lt. Cdr. JoAnn Galloway, Kaffe brings the accused Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey, into court to prove that they are not guilty of murder because they were “just following orders” (Reimen). However, why did Dawson and Downey follow the orders, if they knew the result would be hurting another? Why did they not rebel against it? Maybe it was because of the situation, or how obedient the two Marines were, or many it is just the plain and simple evil at work. Nevertheless, two articles that mention the experiments to test this is “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo and “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram. The results gathered from these experiments confirms the belief of hidden wickedness inside human beings. Plus Zimbardo himself made an hypothesis that good people can become evil in the blink of an eye. He based this hypothesis on his prison experiment. Both of these authors addresses how their experiments determine how the obedience and the

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

In Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland tells the story of Battalion 101, a group of 500 policemen in their 30’s and 40’s who were sent into Poland to participate in a ‘special action’ without being told exactly what they are doing. Overtime they realized their mission is to Kill Jews and racially purify Europe. Most of the killing during this period of mass murder took place in Poland. Battalion 101 together with other Order Police battalions contributed to the manpower needed to carry out this enormous task. Browning comments that these men all went through their developmental period before the Nazis came into power. These were men who had known political standards and moral norms other than those of the Nazis. Most men came from Hamburg; one of the least ‘nazified’ cities in Germany and the majority came from a social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture. In seems this would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf on the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews. However, their actions helps us understand not only what they did to make the Holocaust happen, but also how they were transformed psychologically from the ordinary men into active participants in the most horrific offence in human history. In doing so, it aims on the human capacity for extreme evil and leaves this subject matter with the shock of knowledge and the

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

The arguments of Christopher Browning and Daniel John Goldhagen contrast greatly based on the underlining meaning of the Holocaust to ordinary Germans. Why did ordinary citizens participate in the process of mass murder? Christopher Browning examines the history of a battalion of the Order Police who participated in mass shootings and deportations. He debunks the idea that these ordinary men were simply coerced to kill but stops short of Goldhagen's simplistic thesis. Browning uncovers the fact that Major Trapp offered at one time to excuse anyone from the task of killing who was "not up to it." Despite this offer, most of the

As Arendt said, “the hunter will then become the hunted.” (Arendt, 2007) Vladek’s cousin Persis was also a member of the committee and was therefore killed. His wife, having heard this, decided not to allow the Nazis to take her life and those of the children including Richev, Vladek’s son. She gave them poison to dink and then drank some herself. She said, “I won’t go their gas chamber and neither my children.” (Spiegelman, 1986) She knew they would have been killed, so she choose to take their lives instead. Arendt stated, “Terror ultimate goal is not the welfare of men but to eliminate individuals for the rest of the species.” (Arendt, 2007) The Germans indoctrinated the rest of the population with their ideologies, allowing them to think that the terror they enforced upon the Jews were to ensure that they the Germans survive. That is why, “The guards, it was Jews with big sticks. They acted so just like the Germans.” (Spiegelman, 1986) Arendt said, “Ideologies have the tendency to explain not what is, but what becomes, what is born and passes away.” (Arendt, 2007) The Jews that became guards did not fully understand the Germans ‘plans for the Jews were so they became part of the “Iron Band” and turned from the “classes into masses” and having no

It was composed of the Uniformed Police under which police battalions operated. Police Battalions were the branch of the Order Police most intimately involved in the genocide. A large percentage of the Germans who were their members were an inauspicious lot not selected for them because of military or ideological fitness. Knowledge of Police battalion activities during the war is fragmented and partial. An overview of police battalion activities in the occupied areas can, however be constructed. After entering Biatystak on the twenty-seventh of June, a city the Germans had captured they rounded up male Jews by combing through Jewish residential areas. The purpose was to kill them, but no instructions were given on the manner of how to do it. The entire battalion participated which proceeded with great brutality and wanton murderousness. They made them dance before them, when they did not dance fast enough, they set their beards on fire. One member of the police battalion urinated upon them. The Germans took hundreds of Jews from the marketplace to nearby sites where they shot them. There were so many Jews being brought to the market place they needed a faster way to exterminate them. They drove their victims into their synagogue and set it ablaze. With what emotions did the men of the police battalion 309 gaze upon this sacrificial pyre to the exterminationist creed? One

(Mosse, 1998, p. 167) In this aspect it is obvious the importance of the ideological area of militarism. Furthermore, in order to fulfil their racial duties, men were also encouraged to marry ‘hereditarily fit’ German women and establish large families. The camaraderie felt between soldiers also appealed to the Nazis, as to the regime ‘male bonding’ was considered the foundation of the state. ‘Soldierly comradeship, cemented with blood, can perhaps temporarily relax, but it can never be torn out of the heart, it cannot be exterminated.’ (Mosse, 1966, p.102) As a result, the idea of the Männerbund (male collective) was heavily promoted in Nazi Germany. (Mosse, 1998, p. 158) Additionally, the organization Hitler-Judgend was created to indoctrinate young men in to the Nazi ideology. ‘The Hitler Youth drilled young Germans to accept Nazi concepts of race, discipline and obedience.’ However, its success in indoctrinating young people was limited as the emphasis on obedience grew tiring for many members. (McDonough, 1999,

They could of followed orders and at the same times break orders, they had choices. I think that circumstances do shape the way people reveal themselves, but it their choice to either go against those circumstances or to go with the flow of them. Like Schindler who could of changed due to the circumstances of the holocaust, but instead he didn’t he kept his own character. Also, with the Nazi’s at the end who were given the choice to kill or go back home to their family not a murderer, Schindler put different circumstances in front of those soldiers, they could follow orders or not. Since Schindler wasn’t going to report them the soldiers decided not to kill all the