Ordinary Men, Review Essay, Research Paper

Ordinary Work force Analysis

The work forces of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were merely ordinary work forces, from a assortment of backgrounds, instruction, and age. It would look that they were non selected by any force other than random opportunity. Their backgrounds and upbringing, nevertheless, did small to fix these work forces for the horrors they were to witness and take part in.

The group was made up of both citizens and calling police officers. Major Wilhelm Trapp, a calling police officer and World War I veteran headed the battalion. Trapp joined the Nazi party in 1932, but ne’er became an office in the SS. His two captains, Hoffmann and Wohlauf, were SS trained officers. The modesty lieutenants, all seven of them, were drafted into the Order Police because they were ordinary. They were in-between category, educated, and successful in their civilian lives. Five of them were members of the Nazi party, but none were in the SS. Of 32 staying officers 22 were Party members, but none were members of the SS. Sixty-three per centum of the remainder of the battalion were blue-collar workers. About 35 per centum were low-class workers. The staying two per centum were middle-class but non greatly successful. Many were in their late thirties, excessively old for active ground forces responsibility, but merely right for constabularies responsibility. They were old plenty to cognize of political political orientation other than that of the Nazi party, even though most were members.

Without a uncertainty, the work forces of this battalion greatly contributed to the concluding solution. The first action the 101st Battalion was order to make took topographic point in J zef w. They went into the town and were ordered to hit anyone seeking to get away and those that were excessively ill or frail to walk to the market place, every bit good as babies and anyone offering opposition or trying to conceal, were to be shot on the topographic point. ( Browning, 57 ) They so trucked or marched the Jews they found into the forests merely outside the small town. When the first truckload of 35 to forty Jews arrived, an equal figure of police officers cam frontward and, face to face, were paired off with their victims. ( Browning, 61 ) The shear atrociousness of this was excessively much for many of the police officers, so intoxicant was provided to quiet the work forces s nervousnesss. Merely a twelve work forces stepped out and refused to hit at all. As the twenty-four hours went on, nevertheless, many could non go on. They even had a particular technique dubbed the cervix shooting. The work forces were told to put the terminal of their carbines on the cervical vertebrae at the base of the cervix, but here excessively the shot was done ab initio without fixed bayonets as a usher. The consequences were dismaying. The taws were gruesomely besmirched with blood, encephalons, and bond matchwoods. It hung on their vesture. ( Browning, 65 ) The undertaking at manus would look dashing at first, but as clip went on the 101st Battalion would polish their methods, and the shot would come much easier to them. This scarred the work forces and they tried to warrant what they were making. I made the attempt, and it was possible for me, to hit merely kids. It so happened that the female parents led the kids by the manus. My neighbour so shot the female parent and I shot the kid that belonged to her, because I reasoned with myself that after all without its female parent the kid could non populate any longer. It was supposed to be, so to talk, comforting my scruples to let go of kids unable to populate without their female parents. ( Browning, 73 ) The writer goes on to farther explicate what the soldiers really meant. The full weight of this statement, and the significance of the word pick of the former police officer, can non be to the full appreciated unless one knows that the German word for release besides means to deliver or salvage when used in a spiritual sense. The 1 who releases is the Erl ser the Savior or Redeemer! ( Browning, 73 )

After the effects on the work forces of the straight-out slaughter were seen, two alterations took topographic point. First, the 101st Battalion was assigned to uncluttering the ghettos and lading people on trains destined for the Treblinka decease cantonment. Second, the existent dirty work was to be carried out by SS-trained soldiers. This helped take them mentally from the deceases, and made their work much more efficient.

They went on through a figure of towns, uncluttering out ghettos and lading people on trains. By mid-November 1942, following the slaughters at J zef tungsten, Lomzay, Serokomla, Konskowola, and elsewhere, and the settlement of the ghettos in Miedzyrzec, Luk tungsten, Parczew, Radzyn, and Kock, the work forces of Reserve Battalion 101 had participated in the straight-out executing of at least 6,500 Polish Jews and the exile of at least 42,000 more to the gas Chamberss of Treblinka. ( Browning, 121 ) No

tungsten that that was done, they had to travel back through and do certain the towns and ghettos were genuinely judenfrei ( free of Jews ) . Hence, the Jew Hunt began, and the soldiers would be faced with mass executings. This was rather important because the work forces were face to confront with their victims, merely this clip many were hardened slayers and would manage the state of affairs rather otherwise. Although there are no Numberss as to how many Jews were killed by the 101st during this expanse, there are Numberss for other similar groups. For a group near Lublin, the sum was 1,695, or an norm of about 283 per month, and in Warsaw, …reflect a sum of 1,094 Hebrews killed by his unit, for an norm of about 14 Jews per police officer. ( Browning, 131 ) Browning points out that many of these adult male had participated in ghetto glade, but few had, up to this point, been involved in such personal violent deaths. It was a retentive, remorseless, ongoing run in which the huntsmans tracked down their quarry in direct and personal confrontation. It was non a passing stage but an experiential status of changeless readines and purpose to kill every last Jew who could be found. ( Browning, 132 )

There last concluding, and most barbarous expanse was the Harvest Festival. Here they were to pass over out the staying Jews in the work cantonments. The work forces here were now ordered to kill the cooks and retainers they had working for them. This expanse was led by the SS and involved delving mass Gravess that the victims were rounded up into. Once stripped naked, they were ordered to lie down into the grave, where they were sprayed by machine gun fire. The following unit of ammunition was ordered to lie down on those who were already shot. This was even more inhumane so the old violent deaths because there were no cervix shootings, the victims were frequently merely wounded. The hurt wouldn T dice immediately, but would be crushed by the following moving ridge of victims being ordered to creep onto the organic structures of their hurt friends and household.

Did Police Battalion 101 significantly contribute to the race murder? With a conservative estimation of 6,500 Hebrews shooting during the earlier actions like those at Jozefow and Lomazy and 1,000 shooting during the Jew Hunts, and a minimal estimation of 30,500 Hebrews shot at Majdanek and Poniatowa, the battalion had participated in the direct shooting deceases of at least 38,000 Hebrews. With the decease cantonment exile of at least 3,000 Hebrews from Miedzyrzec in early May 1943, the figure of Jews they had placed on trains to Treblinka had risen to 45,000. For a battalion of less than 500 work forces, the ultimate organic structure count was at least 83,000 Jews. ( Browning, 142 )

At this clip, one must inquire what drove these dock workers, bankers, and business communities, ordinary work forces, to kill so many people. Browning goes into a deep analysis of the possible causes for these work forces to go hard-boiled slayers. He dismisses propaganda because many of the work forces were older, and had seen life before the Nazi government. He besides does non believe the work forces were specially chosen to be slayers. By age, geographical beginning, and societal background, the work forces of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were least likely to be considered disposed stuff out of which to model future slayers. ( Browning, 164 ) So, what did really drive them to kill? He attributed much of it to out of site, out of head. Not merely was the killing done by others, but it was done out of sight of the work forces who cleared the ghettos and forced the Jews onto the decease trains. ( Browning, 163 ) There have been a figure of trials performed by psychologists that studied the effects of force per unit area from authorization figures on human behaviour. By analyzing one of the most celebrated, Milgram s electric daze trial, it is difficult non to pull some analogues. Milgram noticed that if people did non hold direct contact with the people they were bring downing hurting on, two-thirds of the topics inflicted what was considered utmost hurting. If they had ocular and voice feedback, merely 40 per centum obeyed orders. The figure fell to thirty per centum if they were in direct contact with the individual they were flooring. Browning besides points out that the societal force per unit areas of conformance were rather evident. Within virtually every societal collective, the equal group exerts enormous force per unit areas on behaviour and sets the moral norms. If the work forces of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could go slayers under such fortunes, what group of work forces can non? ( Browning, 189 ) In shutting, these work forces, who appeared to be rather ordinary, became extraordinary in their ferociousness and violent death, no affair what the ground. Decidedly, their part to the race murder was rather important. It is a shame that many received small, or no penalty for the slaughter they participated in.

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