Brief Summary Of Ordinary Men By Christopher R. Browning

Ordinary Men Summary When most people think and learn about the holocaust they are only taught from the Jewish peoples point of view. They learn about the mass murder committed by Hitler and the Nazis. A group that is usually overlooked is the German people that were forced to take part of Hitler’s “ethnic cleansing.” The book Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning goes into detail about the men that were forced into killing innocent people and coerced Jewish people into concentration camps. In this insightful book Browning reveals the background, emotions, and thoughts of a group of men called the Reserve Police Battalion 101. Browning starts off the book by telling the reader what type of men made up Reserve Police Battalion 101, and

As mentioned before, the Jozefow massacre was when Battalion 101 went to the small town of Jozefow, killed all the women, children, and elderly, and rounded up the men. Before the men of Battalion 101 were told the mission most of them had no clue of what was to come. They were given some hints from their leaders like it was an “extremely interesting task,” and one Sargent said “he didn’t want to see any cowards.” After the men had traveled to Jozefow they were finally told of the mission they were on. At that point Trapp, their commander, said “…any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out” (Browning). Only one many took this extraordinary kind offer, the rest went forth with the mission. Throughout the chapter Browning gave many examples of how Commander Trapp had a difficult time with the task of killing so many people. One specific example is one policeman remembered hearing Trapp say “‘Oh, god, why did I have to be given these orders,’ as he put his hand on his heart” (Browning). To make the situation worse after all the order police had finished rounding up all the Jewish men, they were escorted to the woods and lined up in groups and shot. This massacre continued all day for about a week straight until Battalion 101 was reassigned to the northern sector of the Lublin district. Chapter 8 consisted of the psychological aftermath on the men of Battalion after the Jozefow massacre. When Commander Trapp first made his offer for men to step down from the killing few gave up at that time. The reason there were so few people to actually give up is because the men were very surprised by the offer and they did not want to be different and separated themselves from the rest. When the men from Battalion 101 were interview after World War Two they were asked with they did not give up at that point, their reasons