Ordinary Men
Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust."—Newsweek
Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs.
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.
While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.
Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.
Customer Reviews
Stands alone, one of a kind book - honest and humbling
I was not aware of the book focusing on the same order police battalion by Professor Goldhagen until I reached Browning’s new afterword. While reading the afterword, I jumped back and forth between his writing and other sources I could find that offered synopses and perspective on Goldhagen’s book. Though not having read Goldhagen’s book, I seriously doubt whether its widespread popular acclaim shortly after publication indicates a better recounting and more accurate description of the causal factors that led ordinary men to perpetrate industrial genocide. Browning scores high and sends an enduring message about the common thread through all of humanity, echoed in the works of Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, and other timeless writers.
Amazing book
If you are interested in how seemingly regular people can be driven to commit atrocities like those of the holocaust, this is a great book. It’s so great that I don’t think I’ll be able to read it again. Browning did an amazing job at describing what these men did. Truly a great piece of literature.
Disturbing and Essential Reading
All interested in the Holocaust should read this. The 101 Reserve Battalion’s story is a chilling reminder of what almost all of us are capable of in the wrong conditions.