Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
by Christopher R. Browning
List Price:
Our Price: $8.09
You Save: $6.86 (46%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.95 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Christopher R. BrowningEdition: Paperback
Published: 1993-03-17
ISBN: 0060995068
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Book Review: Ordinary Men is a grisly look at a German killing squad implementing the Final Solution in Poland
Summary: 5 Stars
Christopher Browning is a distinguished historian of the horror of the Nazi holacaust against the Jews during World War II, His book on Reserve Police Battalion 101 is a microcosmic examination of how ordinary men responded to the Hitler's regime's insane plan to kill all of the Jews in
Europe.
The book focuses on the Reserve Police Battalion 101 made up of lower middle class men from Hamburg. These men were typical Germans in their views toward Jewry and the Nazi propaganda drummed into their heads. Most of the soldiers were long married, had some level of education and managed to avoid frontline service. These men were not in the military elite and most prefered civilian life back home in Hamburg.
These approximately 500 soldiers particpated in several shooting of Jews in Polish villages; transportation of the Jews to death camps and Jew hunts in which the hapless Semites would be captured. They are responsible for the shooting of 6,500 Jews at Jozefow and Lomazy; 35,000
at Majdanek and Poniatowa and placing Jews on trains to Treblinka. In all they participated in the deaths of 83,000 Jewish men, women and children.
The vast majority of the German soldiers took part in the murders. Some were reluctant to engage in this murderous enterprise by they were in the minority. Among reasons given for the odious and criminal behavior of the men in Reserve Police Batallion 101 are according to Browning:
1. Peer pressure of their comrades in arms. These were men in hostile territory who did not want to be accused of letting their buddies down.
2. Obedience to orders from higher authorities.
3. Fears of their or their family's punishment if orders were not obeyed.
4. A belief that the Jews were not Aryan human beings and were responsible for the killing of German women and children.
Browning claims each person's motivations are a mystery to the rest of us and we can never say beyond extrapolation what led these men to commit such abhorrent deads of cruelty and murder.
Browning has included a long appendix in which he responds to the criticisms on his work made by Dr. Daniel Goldhagen. Goldhagen believes that Germany was pervaded by antisemetic culture making the entire nation into Hitler's willing executioners. Browning contrarily argues that antisemitism was not limited to Germany. Browning states that German authoritarianism, conformity with the social group and Nazi propaganda all played a role in turning regular individuals into mass killers. He is cautionary on the power for harm which can be inflicted by authoritarian states on their citizens.
Browning's book is a classic of holocaust literature and is essential in any study of the gruesome and heartbreaking study.
Summary of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim AppeloThe shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in World War Two Classics
Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France (Vintage)by Carmen Callil
Vintage; Published: 2007-12-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.90
Price in other shops:
Wartimeby Juliet Gardiner
REVIEW (HEADLINE); Published: 2005-10-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.09
The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear, Part Two (The Oxford History of the United States, V. 9)by David M. Kennedy
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-11-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
The Third Reich: A New Historyby Michael Burleigh
Hill and Wang; Published: 2001-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops:
Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945by Richard Overy
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1998-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops:
The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningradby Harrison Salisbury
Da Capo Press; Published: 2003-09-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.68
Price in other shops:
Empire of the Sunby J. G. Ballard
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.54
Price in other shops:
SS-GB: Nazi-Occupied Britain 1941by Len Deighton
Alfed A. Knopf; Published: 1979-02-12; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young GirlPocket Books; Published: 1953; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.50
Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (Occupation in Europe Series)Berg Publishers; Published: 2007-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.91
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945by Saul Friedlander
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.39
Price in other shops:
The Drowned and the Savedby Primo Levi
Vintage; Published: 1989-04-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific Warby John W. Dower
Pantheon; Published: 1987-02-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939by Saul Friedlander
Harper Perennial; Published: 1998-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.45
Price in other shops:
Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 (Social Studies: History of the World)by William Allen
Franklin Watts; Published: 1984-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.47
Price in other shops:
Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History)by Marion A. Kaplan
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-06-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.47
Price in other shops:
War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Critical Issues in History)by Doris L. Bergen
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; Published: 2003-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.94
Price in other shops:
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaustby Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Vintage; Published: 1997-01-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.12
Price in other shops:
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Polandby Jan T. Gross
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-10-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.45
Price in other shops:
Survival In Auschwitzby Primo Levi
Touchstone; Published: 1996-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops: