Review Of The Book 'Ordinary Men' By Christopher Browning

The first time I walked through the streets of Warsaw, the most populated ghetto, housing over four hundred thousand Jews was June 1, 1937. From over the ghetto’s fence, the smell of retched death seeped over. Every man with me pinched their faces in disgust. An officer walked over to greet us at our station wagon. The excitement in his eyes of meeting greeting me was admiring. He reached his hand out and nervously stated, “I can’t believe I am meeting the one and only Adolf Hitler. How do you do, Sir? Sargent? General?” I shot my hand out confidently, and shook his hand, “Good Day, officer. I have finally gotten the time to visit Warsaw, my apologies for waiting so long. You know what they say,

In 1953, Flannery O'Connor published her famous short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” In this story, a family of four members is the Grandmother, Bailey, the children's mother, John Wesley, June Star and the baby. The family is on their way for the vacation after the Grandmother complaints about going to Tennessee instead of Florida; the Grandmother mistakenly brings the family to a dirt road by lying about a secret panel house (the house is actually in Tennessee, not Georgia). A car accident happens, unfortunately, they get help from the Misfit and are shot by the Misfit.

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.

The basis of this novel relies on the need to show that these men were not necessarily physically forced to commit these heinous acts, but that they mentally and psychologically had their hands tied. These men were just as the title of this novel states: ordinary—they were middle-aged men who were lower-middle class, and they had families and worked for a living; they were entirely and frightfully normal, but in just a short span of time they had executed 1800 Jews in a single day. Through this novel and excerpts from Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History, Browning’s theory about the police battalion executioners can be proven accurate and it gives an explanation for these men’s actions. When giving this order to Police Battalion 101 their commander, Wilhelm Trapp, relayed the orders with tears in his eyes, but when given the opportunity, many of the men did not opt out of the executing. The first man to step out began to be berated by Captain Hoffmann but was stopped by Trapp. Trapp and Hoffmann show the nature of this time—while the compassionate and reasonable Trapp shows that the men have an escape out of their

As Browning says, “At Lomazy following orders reinforced the natural tendency to conform to the behavior of one’s comrades. This was much easier to bear than the situation at Jozefow…” (Browning, chapter 9, page 87). This is where the change began to happen for the men of the 101st. Men who slipped away at Jozefow could not do the same at Lomazy and through this baptism by fire they grew more accustomed to the sights, sounds, and smells of these massacres.

In the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tackles the question of why German citizens engaged in nefarious behavior that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish and other minorities throughout Europe. The question of what drove Germans to commit acts of genocide has been investigated by numerous historians, but unfortunately, no overarching answer for the crimes has yet been decided upon. However, certain theories are more popular than others. Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has expounded that the nature of the German culture before the Second World War was deeply embedded in anti-Semitic fervor, which in turn, acted as the catalyst for the events that would unfold into the Holocaust. It is at this

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

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

"There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are faced to deal with" (William Halsey). The same can be said about volatile men. This is the quote Christopher R. Browning thought of when he named this book. The men of the 101st battalion were rarely faced with decisions. Even if it had been proposed by Trapp the morning of Jozefow that "any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out" (Browning, chapter 7, pg. 57), he didn't actually allow them any time to truly think about it. He brought it up moments before they were about to go out to the slaughter. They were blind-sided and the men who didn't want to risk the future of their jobs as policemen or the men

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

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

I have found myself in the middle of a social church event drained and wanting to go home. In my case, it has become easier to socialize with strangers than with people that we know. This chapter really challenged me to really go inward and examine my own feeling towards other people. It made me think of the many times I have hid my self behind an introvert personality, it made me pounder of the fact that this was a selfish action. Taylor also challenge me personally to get over myself, and to think about loving God and our neighbor the way Jesus taught us to, without obeying the rules of society that bind us to certain kind of people. (Pg. 97)

LGBTQ social movements have evolved over time from liberationist politics of the 1970s to an enormous contemporary focus on gay and lesbian marriage rights, a controversial and arguably assimilationist priority for mainstream LGBTQ advocacy groups. Different forms of activism have approached assimilationism versus societal reformation or preservation of unique constructions of queer identities with a myriad of arguments. In “The Trouble with Normal” by Michael Warner, the author focuses primarily on a criticism of gay marriage rights activism in which he posits that all marriage is “selective legitimacy.” He points to other LGBT movements and issues as more worthy of pursuing, particularly intersectional pursuits of equal rights for people regardless of coupled status. In “Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” authors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor give a snapshot history of LGBTQ activism since the 1970s and offer similar arguments as Warner about the heteronormative and neoliberal nature of placing the fight for legal marriage rights at the forefront of LGBTQ activism, although they do also introduce emerging improvements with the increasingly intersectional awareness of modern advocacy efforts.

Ordinary. That is how August felt, ordinary, but people did not see August that way every time he went somewhere he was stared or laughed at. I wouldn’t be like that if I were August. It seems as if August has a hard time at school and everywhere he goes. If I were him I would feel terrible, cool, and awkward.