Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101, By Christopher Browning

Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 explains the story of the most infamous mass killing in modern history and the ordinary men who participated in this genocide. In this book Browning provides insight into who these ordinary men really are and their horrendous acts. The Police Battalion 101 became a mass-execution squad in Poland in 1942-43. Surprisingly every single one of these men were able to make the decision to avoid partaking in the killings with no repercussions, some left, while some stated that they were given no such choice and that they didn’t hear that part. When given the orders to take out these innocent Jews, some of the men pleaded that the reason they were hesitant to kill was the fact that they were simply just too weak. These men became mass-murderers due to propaganda against Jews. The war made people began to view Jews as inhuman and most importantly they did not want to isolate themselves from their comrades in a land not of their own.

Well they weren’t selected on the basis of their potential brutality, but because they just were ordinary. The police battalion 101 consisted of working class, middle-aged men from Hamburg, Germany. These men had known political standards and ethical norms other than the morals of the Nazi’s. It would seem as if one would be skeptical of these group of men taking on the job as mass murderers, but still there 101 battalions each consisting five hundred men. They were no different than ordinary people like us. However about 20% of the members took no or little part in the killing, about 20% were glad to take part, and the remaining 60% just went along. The fact that these men were ordinary never modified their